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THE  UNIVERSITY  SERIES 


Elements 


of 


General    Philosophy 


By  GEORGE  CROOM  ROBERTSON 

LATE  GROTE  PROFESSOR,   UNIVERSITY  COLLEGE,  LONDON 


EDITED    FROM   NOTES    OF    LECTURES    DELIVERED 
AT   THE  COLLEGE,  1870-1892 

By  C.   A.    FOLEY    RHYS    DAVIDS,   M.A. 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1896 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE 


That  I  have  been  able  to  compile  a  second  volume  of 
lectures  delivered  by  the  late  George  Croom  Robertson  is 
again  due,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Charles 
Robertson  in  placing  at  my  disposal  the  MS.  notes  left  by 
the  professor,  and,  in  the  second  place,  to  the  ready  help 
afforded  me,  through  the  loan  of  their  note-books,  by  those 
students  to  whom  I  acknowledged  my  debt  of  gratitude  in 
the  Elements  of  Psychology,  and  to  whom  I  here  once  more 
express  my  grateful  obligation  *.  Once  more,  too,  I  wish  to 
record  my  sense  of  the  benefit  derived  from  the  corrections 
and    suggestions   made    by   Mr.     Charles   Robertson   and 

1  I  append  the  names  of  those  who  contributed  materials  that  I  was 
able  to  use  for  this  manual : — George  A.  Aitken,  Esq.  ;  Rev.  Martin 
Anstey,  M.A. ;  Mrs.  Archer  Hind  (Miss  Laura  Pocock)  ;  Mrs.  Sophie 
Bryant,  D.Sc.  :  Herman  J.  Cohen,  Esq.  ;  Professor  W.  Hall  Griffin, 
B.A. ;  Rev.  Isidore  Harris,  M.A.  ;  H.  Frank  Heath,  Esq.,  B.A., 
Ph.D.  ;  Rev.  Alfred  Hills,  B.A. ;  Principal  J.  Viriamu  Jones,  M.A  , 
F.R.S.  (University  College  S.  Wales  and  Monmouthshire)  ;  J.  Neville 
Keynes,  Esq.,  M.A.,  LL.D. ;  Benjamin  Leverson,  Esq.,  B.A.  ;  Rev.  S. 
Levy,  B.A.  ;  J.  W.  Manning,  Esq.,  M.A.  ;  Miss  Dorothy  Marshall, 
B.Sc.  ;  Andrew  Ogil vie,  Esq.,  B.A.  ;  Miss  Mary  Robertson,  M.A. ; 
Ernest  C.  Robinson,  Esq.,  M.A.  ;  G.  Armitage  Smith,  Esq..  M.A.  ; 
President  J.  G.  Schurman,  M.A.,  D.Sc.  (Cornell  University);  Rev. 
E.  H.  Titchmarsh,  M.A. ;  H.  J.  Tozer,  Esq.,  M.A. 


viii  Introductory  Note. 

Mr.  Thomas  Whittaker  when  going  through  the  proofs. 
I  am  also  indebted  for  kind  advice  and  cordial  help  to 
Professor  Knight. 

Excepting  the  full  draft  of  an  Introductory  Lecture  on 
the  History  of  Philosophy,  which  has  been  collated  with 
students'  note-books  to  form  Lectures  III- VI,  the  author's 
own  materials  have  been  wrought  up  almost  wholly  in 
Part  II.  For  instance,  in  the  concluding  three  lectures 
on  Kant  they  practically  superseded  my  having  recourse  to 
reports  of  college  lectures.  It  so  happened  that,  although 
the  professor  had  more  than  once  had  occasion  to  give 
college  lectures  on  this  subject,  only  one  set  of  notes  on 
Kant  had  come  into  my  hands.  » 

The  first  seventeen  lectures,  presenting  a  definitely  con- 
secutive treatment — an  outline-history  of  Western  philosophy 
(I-VII)  and  a  somewhat  closer  consideration  of  the  three 
main  problems  of  that  philosophy  (VIII-XVII) — constituted 
the  annual  elementary  course  on  General  Philosophy,  or 
Epistemology,  delivered  in  alternation  with  a  course  on 
Ethics  during  May  and  June.  I  do  not  mean  that  the 
number  was  always  precisely  seventeen ;  it  was  usually  less. 
The  historic  outline  had  sometimes  to  be  dropped  or 
transferred  to  the  special  courses,  while  the  consideration 
of  particular  problems  was  prolonged.  I  have  combined 
both  the  one  and  the  other  in  a  slightly  enlarged  course. 
Finally,  in  the  two  lectures  on  Logic  and  Ethics,  I  have 
borrowed  from  the  annual  courses  on  those  subjects,  in 
order  that  the  manual  might  be  enriched  by  an  outline, 
however  brief,  of  the  author's  practical  philosophy. 


Introductory  Note.  ix 

The  special  lectures  are  intended  to  form  a  course  of 
somewhat  more  advanced  reading,  to  succeed  the  study  of 
Part  I.  They  were  delivered  to  an  inner  circle  of  students, 
small  in  number,  candidates  for  the  most  part  qualifying 
for  the  higher  London  University  examinations,  assembled 
during  the  years  of  the  lecturer's  declining  health  at  a  round 
table  in  his  own  house  at  Notting  Hill.  The  special  work 
or  works  under  discussion  lay  open  before  each  person. 
The  professor's  utterances  took  therefore  the  form  rather  of 
a  running  commentary,  with  here  and  there  a  more  general 
disquisition,  than  of  a  lecture  systematically  developed.  (This 
remark  does  not,  of  course,  apply  to  the  last  three  '  special ' 
lectures.)  Of  these  running  commentaries  I  have  given 
the  substance  in  a  more  or  less  condensed  form.  Thus  the 
lecture  on  Plato's  epistemology  is  a  condensation  of  a  course 
of  eight  conversational  discourses  on  the  Thcaetelus,  Timaeus, 
and  part  of  the  Republic  (delivered  a  few  months  before  the 
professor's  death).  The  lecture  on  Aristotle's  Psychology 
is  condensed  from  a  like  number ;  those  on  Descartes  from 
fifteen.  There  were  many  such  advanced  courses  given  during 
Professor  Robertson's  long  occupancy  of  the  Grote  chair. 
They  would  have  been  even  more  varied  had  it  not  been 
for  the  limits  in  the  cycle  of  philosophical  works  prescribed 
by  the  University  of  London,  to  which  the  curriculum 
of  University  College  adapts  itself1.     Limits  of  space  made 

1  No  post-Kantian  work  was  prescribed  during  Robertson's  pro- 
fessoriate for  the  examinations  in  history  of  philosophy  with  one 
exception  — the  Metapkysic  of  Lotze.  At  ti.at  time  (1887-83,  the  pro- 
fessor was,  alas  !  too  ill  to  lecture. 


x  Introductory  Note. 

it  imperative  that  I  should  select,  and  the  choice  was 
determined  less  by  the  nature  of  my  materials  than  by  what 
seems  to  me  to  have  been  a  salient  standpoint  in  my  master's 
critical  philosophy.  Holding  by  an  enlightened  Experien- 
tialism,  he  was  repelled  by  the  Individualism  prevailing 
in  experiential  doctrine  from  Locke  till  the  present  century. 
Advance  in  biology  has  rendered  in  philosophy,  as  he  says l, 
for  ever  impossible  the  older  Experientialist  position,  that 
knowledge,  with  its  objectivity,  its  universality,  its  necessity, 
can  be  acquired  by  every  individual  for  himself,  in  the 
course  of  his  own  experience,  from  the  beginning.  Close 
and  sympathetic  study  of  the  great  Rationalist  thinkers,  from 
Plato  to  Kant,  enabled  him  to  discern  what  they,  burdened* 
by  faulty  method  and  the  then  scanty  store  of  the  fruits  of 
scientific  research,  were  groping  after  in  thtir  insistence  on 
the  innate  furniture  of  the  mind,  namely,  the  predetermina- 
tion, the  collective  endowment  of  the  individual  by  the 
race,  as  a  prius  to  whatever  his  own  experience  can  teach 
him.  Adjusting  his  own  philosophy,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
take  account  of  every  advance  in  scientific  theory,  he  was 
careful,  on  the  other,  to  bring  out  the  continuous  evolution 
of  philosophic  thought,  history  of  human  error  though  it 
might  be2.  And  he  held  that  the  Experientialism  even  of 
to-day  needed  to  be  widened  and  deepened,  not  only  by 
frankly  adopting  the  evolutionary  standpoint,  but  also  by 
being  brought  face  to  face  at  all  points  with  the  best  teaching 
of  Rationalist  thought,  including  especially  the  critical  stand- 
points of  Kant.  Hence  it  is  that  I  have  selected  the 
1  See  below,  p.  15a.  *  See  below,  p.  19. 


Introductory  Note.  xi 

Cartesian  school  and   the    Kritik   rather   than  lectures   on 
Bacon,  Locke,  Hume,  and  others. 

I  need  not  here  repeat  what  is  written  in  the  Elements  of 
Psychology  by  way  of  apology  to  the  memory  of  the  dead 
philosopher  for  undertaking  a  task  so  heavily  fraught  with 
responsibility  as  the  editing  of  these  lectures.  That  re- 
sponsibility is  but  slightly  alleviated  in  the  present  volume 
by  my  having  had  access,  in  the  lectures  where  it  is  indicated, 
to  more  complete  MSS.  by  the  author's  own  hand.  The 
task  was  undertaken  in  the  hope  of  suggesting  to  the 
philosophic  thought  of  the  generation  that  has  witnessed 
the  untimely  close  of  a  life  just  come  to  philosophic  maturity, 
with  what  generous  ardour  and  constructive  thought  on 
behalf  of  the  minds  he  was  guiding,  that  life  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  had  spent  itself,  and  more  than  spent  itself, 
in  the  ungrateful  if  noble  work  of  the  class-room.  At  the 
same  time,  by  presenting  a  part  of  that  work  in  practically 
its  original  form,  and  in  availing  myself  of  the  opportunity 
afforded  me  of  incorporating  it  in  an  educational  series,  I 
hope  no  less  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  student,  standing 
on  the  threshold  of  the  precincts  of  philosophy,  by  making 
him  partaker  in  benefits  that  the  living  source  so  richly 
dispensed. 

If  such  a  student  should  take  up  this  volume  without 
having  previously  read  and  re-read  the  companion  manual, 
Elements  of  Psychology,  or  some  equivalent  text-book  of 
modern  date  on  the  same  subject,  he  is  earnestly  recom- 
mended to  lose  no  time  in  making  good  that  omission. 
Thus  only  will  he  be  able  to  read  this  volume  with  the 


xii  Introductory  Note. 

maximum  of  profit.  It  was  a  fundamental  principle  with 
Professor  Robertson — true  to  the  tradition  of  the  British 
School — that  philosophic  considerations,  from  whatever  other 
groundwork  they  might  spring,  should  not  precede,  but  be 
complementary  to,  the  study  of  psychology — that,  in  his 
own  words,  the  consideration  of  how  we  come  to  know 
anything  should  precede  that  of  what  it  is  as  known.  The 
reader,  on  the  other  hand,  who  has  mastered  the  essential 
data  of  psychology,  and  naturally  he  most  of  all  who 
has  acquainted  himself  therewith  as  they  are  ordered  by 
the  same  mind  that  planned  the  philosophic  arguments 
in  the  present  volume,  will  have  his  reward.  Especially 
will  he  see  how  rich  in  philosophic  import  becomes 
that  central  point  in  George  Croom  Robertson's  psycho- 
logical analysis — the  theory  of  objective  perception,  with 
its  vertebral  idea  of  the  coefficient,  in  sense,  of  conscious- 
ness of  activity  put  forth.  He  will  see  this  point  applied, 
again  and  again,  in  the  explanation  of  such  ultimate  notions 
as  necessity  in  knowledge,  the  conception  of  substance,  the 
idea  of  causation,  and  the  belief  in  an  external  world.  And 
he  will  find  effective  in  suggestiveness,  not  to  say  guidance, 
a  philosophy  thus  psychologically  based.  In  that  philosophy 
the  tradition  handed  down  in  this  country — the  school  of 
British  psychological  philosophy — attains  a  distinct  develop- 
ment. More  than  its  well-known  modern  exponents,  Robert- 
son had,  in  his  own  phrase,  '  gone  to  school  under '  Leibniz 
and  Kant.  And  it  is  with  a  philosophic  grasp  and  insight 
worthy  of  these  two,  while  carrying  on  the  direct  line  of 
succession  in  the  psychological  tradition,  that  he  seeks  to 


Introductory  Note.  xiii 

show  how  it  is  no  mere  metaphor  to  say  that  the  world 
as  we  know  it  is  as  we  mentally  construct  it : — that  we  know 
it  not  with,  as  it  were,  a  quasi-detachable  intellect  only,  but 
with  our  whole  living  energy;  that  we  know  in  so  far  as 
we  act,  nay,  that  ultimately,  only  as  we  will,  as  we  put  forth 
activity,  as  we  act,  can  we  claim  fully  to  be  *. 

Caroline  A.  F.  Rhys  Davids  2. 

June,  1896. 

1  See  below,  Lecture  XVII. 

s  All  footnotes  in  the  lectures,  unless  the  contrary  is  stated,  are 
parenthetical  remarks  made  by  the  professor  himself.  The  works,  or 
passages  in  works,  prescribed  for  the  student's  special  reading  were, 
in  nearly  every  case,  those  prescribed  by  the  lecturer  himself.  In 
a  few  lectures  I  have  given  references  to  books  or  subjects  discussed, 
and  also  to  the  lecturer's  own  published  writings. 


CONTENTS 


PART   I. 

LECTURE  *AG* 

I.  The  Bond  and  the  Distinction  between  Psycho- 
logy and  Philosophy i 

II.  Philosophy  as  Epistemology 10 

III.  The  Historical  Aspect  of  Philosophy  and  of 

Science 17 

IV.  Historical  Sketch  of  Greek  Philosophy    .       .  24 
V.   Mediaeval  Philosophy 37 

VI.  Scholasticism  and  the  Rise  of  Modern  Science 

and  Philosophy 47 

VII.  Modern  Philosophy 56 

VIII.  Universals 68 

IX.  Universals    {continued).    Nominalism    and    Con- 

CEPTUALISM 77 

X.  The   Nature  of    Knowledge.    Knowledge  and 

Belief ,        .  85 

XI.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.     Before  Locke       .  97 

XII.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.    After  Locke.        .  112 

XIII.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.    Critical  Philosophy  124 

XIV.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.     Causation      .        .  135 
XV.  The  Nature  of  Knowledge.    Evolution      .        .  147 

XVI.  The  Perception  of  an  External  (or  Material) 

World .  154 

XVII.  The  Perception  of  an  External  (or  Material) 

World  (continued')  .        .        .        .        .        .        .168 

XVIII.  Regulative  Philosophical  Doctrine     .        .        .181 
XIX.  The  Basis  and  the  End  of  Ethics         .        .        .191 


XVI 


Contents. 


PART   II. 


SPECIAL  LECTURES. 


LECTURE 

XX. 
XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 


XXVIII. 


XXIX. 


rAGB 

201 


On  the  Epistemology  of  Plato  . 
On  the  Psychology  of  Aristotle  .  .  .  314 
On  the  Method  of  Descartes  .  .  .  .231 
On  the  Philosophy  of  Descartes  .  .  .  244 
On  the  Philosophy  of  Descartes  {continued)    .    258 

On  Cartesianism 270 

On  Cartesianism  (continued) 287 

On  Kant's  Critical  Philosophy  ....    304 

I.  Kanfs  importance  in  the  present  state  of  English 
thought. 

On  Kant's  Critical  Philosophy  {continued)       .    317 

II.  General  view  of  the  Kritik  and  the  Prolegomena. 

III.  Mathematical  Necessity  and  Muscular  Sense. 

IV.  On  the  Nature  and  Conditions  of  Intellectual 
Synthesis. 

On  Kant's  Critical  Philosophy  {continued)        .    339 

V.  The  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason. 


ELEMENTS 

OF 

GENERAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

PART  I. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE    BOND    AND    THE    DISTINCTION   BETWEEN  PSYCHOLOGY   AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 

General  Philosophy  as  based  upon  and  supplementing  Psychology. 
In  these  lectures  I  wish  to  supplement  the  preceding 
psychological  course  in  two  ways.  We  found  that  in  the 
process  of  psychological  discussion  certain  philosophical 
questions  were  more  or  less  involved.  Into  these,  which 
we  then  passed  by,  we  will  now  inquire.  Again,  our  former 
course  touched  on  many  purely  psychological  questions,  which 
from  our  wider  philosophic  standpoint  we  may  review, 
fill  in,  and  add  to.  We  saw  that  'Philosophy  of  Mind' 
meant  Science  of  Mind,  whatever  else  it  might  mean.  But 
we  have  also  seen  that  science  of  mind  or  psychology  does 
not  contain  all  that  is  meant  by  philosophy  of  mind.  And 
psychological  treatment  needs  to  be  supplemented,  before 
we  can  be  fully  satisfied,  by  a  philosophical  consideration  of 
the  problems  of  mind.  I  do  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
philosophy  is  nothing  more  than  a  review  of  the  problems 
of  psychology  from  another  point  of  view,  but  it  is  from  this 

n 


2  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

side  that  I  introduce  students  to  philosophy,  and  it  is  this 
that  I  mean  by  '  General  Philosophy.'  We  are  going  to  take 
up  philosophical  questions  on  a  psychological  basis.  Not  that 
we  can  settle  such  questions  so  determinately  as  those  of 
psychology.  We  can  dogmatise  in  psychology,  for  we  are 
there  treating  of  phenomena ;  but  we  cannot  do  so  in  philo- 
sophy, where  we  can  no  longer  distinguish,  as  we  can  in 
psychology,  between  thinker  and  thought.  But  it  is  most 
important  for  the  student  to  separate  from  psychology  proper 
the  philosophical  considerations  which  arise  out  of  that 
science,  all  the  more  so  that  in  this  country  psychology  has 
been  generally  mixed  up  with  philosophy.  Mill,  Hamilton, 
Professor  Bain,  Mr.  Spencer  are  apt  to  confuse  both  kinds  of 
inquiry,  so  that  I  am  the  more  concerned  that  students* 
should  be  fully  aware  when  the  aspect  is  shifted. 

General  Philosophy  as  Theory  of  Knowledge. 

Ethics,  associated  with  '  General  Philosophy/  is  itself  a 
department  of  philosophy.  It  would  be  impossible  to  treat 
of  philosophy  in  general  without  treating  at  the  same  time 
of  ethics  in  particular.  And  ethics  is  no  part  of  psychology 
at  all.  Equally  is  this  true  with  regard  to  aesthetics.  But 
my  intention,  during  at  least  the  greater  part  of  this  course, 
is  not  to  refer  to  any  philosophical  questions  arising  out  of 
the  psychology  of  conation  or  of  feeling,  but  to  such  as  have 
all  more  or  less  bearing  on  knowledge.  We  see,  therefore, 
what  part  of  our  psychology  it  is  mainly  that  we  shall 
rehearse,  review,  and  supplement,  viz.  the  psychology  of 
intellection.  In  practical  philosophy,  i.  e.  in  Logic,  Ethics, 
and  ^Esthetics,  we  need  to  know  what  functions  of  the  mind  it 
is  that  these  doctrines  regulate.  And  if  General  Philosophy 
is  best  faced  from  the  point  of  view  of  Theory  of  Knowledge, 


I.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  3 

then  does  philosophy  follow  rightly  from  psychology  as 
leading  from  that  which  appears  to  that  which  is,  from  the 
consideration  of  how  we  come  to  know  anything  to  that  of 
what  it  is  as  known. 

Kant's  followers,  including  Green,  condemn  this  method 
as  involving  the  use  of  fundamental  assumptions  before  these 
have  been  sifted.  Then  must  we  indeed  begin  our  sifting 
early,  for  all  use  these  assumptions  with  the  use  of  their 
mother  tongue,  every  two-year  old  as  well  as  every  coster- 
monger,  though  they  do  not  come  to  the  ultimate  expression 
thereof.  Those  writers  end  by  never  getting  on  to  psychology 
at  all  1  It  is  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  some  English  philo- 
sophers have  been  so  content  with  their  psychology  that  they 
have  never  passed  on  to  philosophy.  I  see  the  force  of  the 
Kantian  position ;  no  scientific  basis  is  ultimate.  But 
a  scientific  basis  is  the  only  sound  starting-point,  and  I  will 
maintain  my  view  till  I  get  new  light.  Touching  intellect, 
then,  we  have  to  make  sure  of  our  psychological  ground 
and  see  if  we  may  draw  philosophical  conclusions. 

Theory  of  Knowledge  distinguishable  from  Logic. 

Logic,  no  less  than  ethics  and  aesthetics,  is  a  depart- 
ment of  philosophy  and  intimately  concerned  with  the 
psychology  of  intellection.  Nevertheless,  I  propose  to  mark 
off  logic  also  from  our  philosophical  inquiry,  at  least  for 
the  present,  and  to  confine  our  inquiry  to  Philosophy  as 
Theory  of  Knowledge  in  relation  to  science  in  general 
and  Science  of  Mind  in  particular.  Logic,  like  ethics  and 
aesthetics,  may  be  called  science  from  a  certain  point  of  view ; 
but  that  is  not  the  point  of  view  I  adopt.  For  me,  as  I  shall 
show  later  on,  they  are  regulative  doctrines  or  disciplines,  or 
Nomology.     Logic  is  regulative  discipline  of  thought.     Has 

B    2 


4  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect, 

science  in  itself  anything  to  do  with  regulation  ?  No ;  the 
business  of  science  is  explanation,  or  phenomenology. 
Psychology  deals  with  phenomenology  of  mind,  with  in- 
tellection as  it  naturally  proceeds,  with  the  explanation 
according  to  natural  laws  of  the  intellectual  function  called 
thinking.  That  function  logic  sets  itself  to  regulate.  This 
notion  of  regulation  is  something  which  science  in  no  wise 
expresses.  It  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  we  can  define  the 
function  of  philosophy.  And  because  thought  is  a  means 
of  knowledge,  logic  in  its  widest  sense  is  already  a  part  of  the 
philosophical  Theory  of  Knowledge.  But  logic  is  concerned 
with  true  thinking  or  truth.  Now,  by  truth  of  thought  we 
mean  that  our  thought  has  a  certain  import,  that  it  is  valid. 
Such  considerations,  namely,  as  to  whether  a  given  intellectual 
act  has  any  real  validity  or  not,  are  altogether  outside 
psychology,  though  not  outside  logic.  Now,  if  logic  be 
concerned  with  the  validity  of  thought,  let  us  generalise  this, 
and  we  get  a  definition  of  philosophy  as  theory,  not  merely 
of  the  validity  of  thought,  but  of  the  validity  of  all  knowing. 
We  can  know  otherwise  than  by  thought,  viz.  by  perception. 

Ultimate  Inquiry — its  Nature  and  its  Names. 

1  How  am  I  intellective  of  that  pillar  ? '  We  resolved  my 
act  of  intellection  into  certain  sensations  plus  mental  activity 
of  a  definite  kind — a  complex  function  termed  Perception. 
And  this  was  a  psychological  answer  to  a  psychological  inquiry 
— an  inquiry  which  may  be  thus  otherwise  worded :  '  How 
comes  it  to  pass  in  my  consciousness  that  I  perceive  that 
pillar  ? '  But  if  I  ask,  '  Is  there  a  pillar — a  real  one  ? — 
a  real  pillar  there  apart  from  my  perceptive  mind  ? ' — this  is 
a  philosophical  question,  and  whatever  answer  is  made 
is  a  philosophical  statement,  though  it  may  be  determined 


I.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  5 

by  psychological  insight.  For  we  are  here  asking  a  question 
relating  to  the  import  of  knowledge;  I  am  concerned  to 
know  whether  my  subjective  perception  implies  a  corre- 
sponding reality  or  no. 

Such  questions  may  be  raised  concerning  any  intellectual 
function ;  they  belong  to  the  ultimate  questions  which  the 
human  mind  is  able  to  raise,  and  for  them  is  still  reserved 
the  ancient  term  Philosophy.  If  they  are  raised,  as  here 
and  now,  in  connexion  with  intellection  or  knowing,  the  more 
specific  terms  are  Theory  of  Knowledge,  Epistemology,  or 
Metaphysic.  If  emphasis  is  thrown,  as  it  used  to  be,  rather 
on  the  question  of  '  Being '  than  of  '  Being  in  as  far  as 
known,'  they  are,  or  rather  were,  expressed  by  the  term 
Ontology.  Thus  we  have  got  four  names  which  are  all 
more  or  less  related  to  one  another,  all  being  the  same  in 
respect  of  extension  but  differing  in  intension;  all  denoting 
the  same,  but  having  different  connotation.  Let  us  enter  more 
fully  into  their  meaning  and  history,  and  then  more  clearly 
differentiate  what  they  collectively  amount  to  from  modern 
science  and  psychology. 

Philosophy. 

Philosophy  is  the  oldest  term  of  them  all ;  first  to  be 
started,  it  will  probably  survive  longest.  We  meet  with 
'  philosophy '  and  '  philosopher '  in  Greek  history  earlier 
than  with  the  other  three.  Plato,  e.  g.,  uses  only  these  two. 
Philosophy  originally  stood  for  reasoned  knowledge  in 
general',  it  was  not  differentiated  from  science.  Human 
knowledge  was  supposed  to  be  a  kind  of  organic  whole, 
and  Philosophy  was  the  word  for  it.  But  from  the  time 
of  Plato,  and  still  more  in  that  of  Aristotle,  another  word 
began  to  grow  up,  viz.  Epistemology.    And  Plato  was  already 


6  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

commencing  to  speak  of  '  the  sciences,'  though  the  only 
science  which  then  underwent  development  was  mathematics. 
It  is  not  till  the  modern  period  that  an  antithesis  or  opposi- 
tion is  set  up  between  sciences  and  philosophy.  The  sciences 
were  at  first  rather  departments  of  philosophy,  but  from  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  mathematics  and  other 
sciences  were  pursued  in  a  certain  method  of  their  own,  and 
regarded  apart  from  anything  that  may  still  be  called 
philosophy.  An  ancient  philosopher  had  a  complete  view 
of  the  whole  field  of  knowledge.  Now,  thinkers  are  mainly 
specialists,  knowing  little,  or  but  vaguely,  of  any  department 
except  their  own.  The  opposition  since  then  has  so  far 
widened  that  some  modern  thinkers  have  said  there  is 
nothing  beyond  science.  Comte,  e.g.  called  philosophy! 
a  co-ordination  of  the  sciences1.  There  is  a  good  deal 
called  philosophy  beyond  that ;  at  all  events,  whereas 
philosophy  originally  meant  all  reasoned  knowledge,  it  has 
now  come  to  mean  reasoned  knowledge  no  less,  but  of 
a  kind  that  stands  apart  from  certain  limited  bodies  of 
doctrine  pursued  according  to  a  strictly  definite  method 
called  that  of  the  sciences,  and  apart  from  psychology  too, 
because  in  respect  of  method  psychology  is  as  much  science 
as  chemistry  is. 

Philosophy  as  Wisdom. 
Again,  all  ancient  knowledge  was  bent  to  a  practical  issue. 
This  is  the  specific  mark  of  what  was  originally  called 
philosophy.  Philosophy  is  '  love  of  wisdom/  and  wisdom 
is  a  term  of  practical  import,  is  knowledge  with  a  practical 
reference ;  is-  not  mere  insight,  but  conduct  guided  by 
insight.     And  still  our  concern   in  ultimate  questions  has 

1  V.  Positive  Philosophy,  Bk.  VI,  ch.  xiii. 


I.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  7 

a  more  or  less  practical  object — an  object  which  we  call 
the  wise  conduct  of  life.  But  this  aspect  of  philosophy 
is  not  found  in  modern  science.  Science  as  such  leaves 
aside  practical  considerations.  It  has  reached  its  present 
development  during  the  last  three  centuries  by  such  elimina- 
tion and  specialisation.  As  long  as  men  could  and  would 
think  about  everything  they  made  little  advance. 

Metaphysic. 

The  term  Metaphysic  in  this  country  and  in  Germany 
has  been  loosely  used.  It  is  often  used  as  indistinguishable 
from  psychology  itself;  e.  g.  in  Hamilton's  Lectures  on  Meta- 
physics, five-sixths  of  which  are  psychological,  the  remainder 
philosophical,  and  in  which  he  passes  without  warning  from 
psychology  into  pure  philosophy.  Professor  Bain  speaks  of 
1  mental  science '  and  sometimes  of  psychology,  but  there  is 
a  goodly  amount  of  philosophy  too  in  his  M.mual,  certain 
chapters  and  much  in  the  historical  notes  being  as  philo- 
sophical as  can  be. 

Metaphysic  also,  as  a  name,  has  an  accidental  origin. 
Aristotle  did  not  use  the  term,  and  yet  the  term  has  grown 
out  of  Aristotle's  works.  He  left,  in  addition  to  his  treatises 
on  life,  mind  or  soul,  and  the  treatise  called  Physica, 
another  work  dealing  with  what  he  sometimes  calls  First 
Philosophy,  with  the  notion  of  '  fundamental,'  and  at  other 
times  'being  as  being'  (to  w  »}  oi>),  in  fact,  Ontology.  The 
precise  word  on/ologia  is  not  found  there,  yet  all  is  there  but 
the  word.  His  editors  and  commentators  placed  this  treatise 
after  the  Physica,  and  called  it  so  (to.  /«ra  ra  <pvo-iKa),  although 
the  author  had  called  it  '  first  philosophy/  No  sooner  had  the 
name  arisen  than  it  underwent  a  change  of  meaning,  and 
stood,  not   for  what  followed   '  after '  the  Physica,  but  lor 


8  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

a  consideration  of  things  fierd,  'beyond/  the  physical  con- 
sideration of  them.  There  was  little  that  was  scientific  in 
Aristotle's  physical  consideration  of  things,  but  in  time 
physics  came  to  be  handled  from  a  purely  scientific  stand- 
point, while  metaphysics  represented  a  standpoint  reaching 
beyond  this,  and  thus  we  get  the  notion  of  metaphysic  as 
opposed  to  science  and  equal  to  philosophy.  And  by 
those  who  were  impressed  by  the  characteristic  difference 
between  Mind  and  '  Nature,'  metaphysic  was  supposed  to 
be  specially  concerned  with  Mind,  as  physic  was  with 
Nature. 

Ontology. 

Ontology,  then,  though  not  used  by  Aristotle,  is  at  the 
point  of  his  pen  to  be  written  down.  We  may,  as  I  have* 
said,  look  upon  it  as  another  name  for  philosophy,  when 
concerned  with  things  '  as  being.'  Is  science  concerned 
with  things  'that  are'?  In  one  sense,  yes.  The  difference 
is  this,  that  in  opposing  ontology  to  science  as  concerned 
with  'being,'  the  antithesis  (which  has  become  perfectly 
clear  to  the  modern  mind)  lies  in  science  dealing  with 
things,  not  so  much  as  they  are,  but  as  they  appear  or 
seem  to  be — with  things  qua  'phenomena.'  Psychology, 
e.  g.  deals  with  mind  only  as  phenomenal.  In  this  century 
some  who  have  pursued  the  study  of  mind  scientifically 
have  tried  to  prove  that  there  is  no  ulterior  consideration ; 
e.g.  the  Mills  and  Professor  Bain.  They  discount  ontology 
as  a  doctrine  that  has  only  led  men  astray  and  has  been 
superseded.  Ontological  questions  may  be  difficult  or  im- 
possible to  solve,  but  no  human  mind  that  works  fairly  can 
exclude  ontological  any  more  than  phenomenal  questions. 
Some  opponents  of  ontology  try  to  escape  the  difficulty  by 
making  phenomena  into  realities. 


I.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  g 

Epistemology. 

Epistemology,  a  term  which  has  come  into  use  within  the 
last  few  years,  expresses  what  in  Germany  is  called  theory 
or  doctrine  of  knowledge,  philosophical  theory  being  under- 
stood. The  notion  was  put  forward  by  Kant  and  his 
followers  in  opposition  to  ontology,  and  to  maintain  that  the 
right  way  to  deal  with  ultimate  questions  of  being  is  to  make 
a  prior  philosophical  inquiry  into  the  import  of  knowledge. 
How  is  this,  in  respect  of  extension,  commensurate  with 
ontology  or  metaphysic?  How  can  the  doctrine  which 
deals  with  things  as  they  are,  be  also  expressed  as  episte- 
mology? Anything  that  is,  can  be,  for  us,  only  as  it  is 
known.  If  we  do  not  know  of  any  being,  it  does  not  exist 
for  us.  Therefore  he  who  provides  an  ultimate  theory  of 
knowledge,  in  that  very  fact  provides  an  ultimate  theory  of 
being.  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  a  consideration  of  how 
knowledge  arises  and  comes  to  pass,  for  that  is  psychology, 
but  of  a  certain  ultimate  consideration  of  knowledge  as  such, 
and  which  cannot  but  be  a  consideration  of  things  as  known, 
and  therefore  of  things  as  being,  or  real.  And  this  is  the 
point  of  view  from  which  philosophy  has  more  and  more 
come  to  be  presented  in  modern  times.  Implicitly  already 
in  Locke,  but  explicitly,  with  full  consciousness,  in  Kant, 
modern  philosophy  has  come  to  be  epistemology,  as  in 
Aristotle  it  was  ontology. 


Passages  for  reading  : — 
N.B.  The  lecturer  used  to  urge  students  not  to  omit  to  supplement 
Lecture  I  by  reading  his  essay  '  Psychology  and  Philosophy,'  Mind, 
January,  1883  ,or  Philosophical  Remains,  pp.  250-273). — Ed. 


LECTURE   II. 


PHILOSOPHY    AS    EPISTEMOLOGY. 


Aspects  of  Philosophy  and  their  Opposites. 

Last  day  I  sought  to  give  a  first  notion  of  the  distinction 
between  science  and  philosophy,  and  more  especially  between* 
psychology  and  philosophy.  But  it  was  only  a  first  distinc- 
tion, and  one  that  I  shall  fill  up  in  the  ensuing  lectures.  When 
we  turned  to  consider  philosophy  as  such,  we  encountered 
a  series  of  terms,  each  having  a  special  connotation,  but  all 
pointing  to  the  same,  all  denoting  the  same  kind  of  doctrine, 
but  in  different  ways.  And  these  we  have  to  a  certain 
extent  discussed  by,  in  some  degree,  denoting  the  opposite 
in  each  case.  Everything  may  to  a  certain  extent  be  defined 
by  denoting  what  it  excludes.  In  the  way  of  knowing,  every- 
thing illustrates  the  principle  of  relativity  (v.  infra,  Lecture 
XVI).  When  we  know  anything  we  know  something  that 
it  is  and  something  that  it  is  not.  I  have  not  said  all  that 
philosophy  is  when  I  say  what  it  is  not,  but  I  have  said 
something  very  important  when  I  say,  for  instance,  that 
philosophy  is  not  science.  Philosophy  has  its  meaning  in 
relation  to  the  sciences,  but  it  excludes  every  science.  Meta- 
physics is  not  physics,  understanding  physics  in  the  widest 
sense  as  science  of  nature,  or  of  natural  phenomena  generally. 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  n 

Ontology  excludes  phenomenology.     We  may  tabulate  these 
opposites  thus : — 

Metaphysics Physics. 

Philosophy     .......     Science. 

Ontology Phenomenology. 

Distinction  between  Epistemology  and  Psychology. 

Now  I  cannot  give  an  equally  sharp  antithesis  in  the 
case  of  Epistemology.  But  we  may  oppose  it  to  ontology 
on  the  one  side,  and  to  psychology  on  the  other.  Psychology 
is  not  theory  of  knowledge,  but  theory  of  mental  phenomena, 
that  is,  of  knowing  or  intellection,  as  well  as  of  feeling  and 
conation.  Again,  ontology  is  not  theory  of  knowledge,  but 
of  being.  Epistemology  brings  forward  what  ontology  does 
not  bring  forward,  viz.  the  subjective  reference  which  is 
always  implied  in  philosophy  as  opposed  to  science.  There 
is  no  subjective  reference  in  science.  One  ball,  e.  g.  strikes 
another,  and  they  move.  With  this  and  the  like  physics  is 
concerned,  but  there  is  neither  overt  nor  covert,  patent  nor 
latent,  subjective  reference.  Even  in  psychology  there  is 
not  the  subjective  reference  there  is  in  philosophy.  Psy- 
chology is  subjective,  not  because  you  make  reference  to 
the  mind  knowing,  but  because  it  is  concerned  with  the 
subjective  phenomena  themselves.  It  investigates  the  knowing 
mind  not  otherwise  than  as  physics  investigates  the  colliding 
of  the  balls ;  it  leaves  out  of  account  the  knowing  mind  as 
such,  although  it  is  true  that  psychology,  as  concerned  with 
subjective  phenomena,  stands,  as  we  have  seen,  opposed  to 
all  other  sciences.  As  subjective  science,  we  saw  that  it 
faces  all  the  other  sciences  as  objective,  and  even  faces  itself 
as  objective.  But  the  subjective  consideration  which  philo- 
sophy invariably  involves  is  not  in  the  way  of  psychological 


12  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

science,  but  is  a  view  of  things  in  relation  to,  or  from  the 
point  of  view  of,  mind.     Psychology   is   a   scientific   con- 
sideration of  mental  phenomena  taken  as  subjectively,  and 
to  a  certain  extent  also  as  objectively,  manifested.     Philo- 
sophy is  not  a  scientific  consideration,  but  is  a  consideration 
of  anything  and  everything  in  relation  to  mind.     And  the 
name  which  best  expresses  philosophy  in   the   fact   of  its 
mental  or  subjective  reference  is  Epistemology.     Epistemo- 
logy  is  just  philosophy,  deals  with  things,  deals  with  being, 
deals  with   things  going    beyond   bare   experience;   but  it 
treats  of  them  in  relation  to  the  fact  of  knowing.     Thus  the 
epistemologist  cannot  help  being  an  ontologist,  because  his 
theory  of  knowledge  must  be  about  things  also  as  being; 
he  must  also  be  a  metaphysician,  because  he  is  concerned 
with  a  whole  range  of  things  beyond  the  physical;  and  he 
must  be  a  philosopher  in  being  other  and  more  than  a  man 
of  science,  or  concerned  with  things  in  a  way  in  which  science 
is  not.     Epistemology  as  theory  of  knowing  is  as  wide  as 
philosophy,  since  for  us  nothing  can  be  that  we  cannot  know. 
And  while  it  is  philosophy  and  not  science,  the  special  science 
to  which  it  stands  in  closest  relation  is  psychology,  and,  within 
psychology,    the   psychological   theory   of   intellection.      It 
does  not  do  that  work  over  again  which  was  done  in  the 
theory  of  intellection.     It  is  not  concerned,  as  that  is,  with 
the  rise,  growth,  and  development  of  intellectual  consciousness. 
What    Epistemology   does   apart    from    this   is    to   inquire 
into  the  value,  import,  validity,  of  knowledge.    These  notions 
have  no  meaning  in  psychology.     We  distinguish  between 
desires   as  good   and   bad,   but  not   as   psychologists.     As 
such  we  are  merely  concerned  with  the  fact  of  desire.     To 
determine  between  desires  as  good  or  bad  is  a  matter  for 
the  philosophical  doctrine  of  ethics. 


II.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  13 

Distinction  between  Logic  and  Epistemology1. 

There  is  indeed,  as  we  saw  last  day,  another  philosophical 
doctrine  concerned  with  the  import  or  validity  of  our  in- 
tellectual consciousness,  namely,  Logic.  Some  writers  use 
the  term  Logic  as  equivalent  to  Theory  of  Knowledge,  but 
such  a  practice  is  confusing.  Hegel,  e.  g.,  in  his  Logic,  sets 
out  a  theory  of  the  validity  of  knowing  of  any  kind. 
Professor  Adamson's  article  on  '  Logic '  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  includes  the  whole  field  of  the  validity  of  know- 
ledge. Mill's  chapter  '  On  the  Things  denoted  by  Names ' 
[Logic,  Bk.  I,  ch.  hi.)  has  nothing  to  do  with  logic,  but  is 
a  discourse  on  theory  of  knowledge.  But,  as  I  pointed  out, 
ejiistemology  is  the  wider  consideration,  and  may  be  viewed 
as  including  logic.  And  the  special  line  of  consideration 
in  each  is  different.  Logic  is  the  doctrine  regulative  of 
thought.  Epistemology  is  concerned  with  the  validity  of 
any  cognition  whatever,  e.g.,  with  percept,  which  is  not 
thought.  Again,  logic  is  concerned  with  the  import  of 
thought  as  general,  whether  the  form  of  thought  be  inductive 
(from  particular  to  general)  or  deductive  (from  the  more  to 
the  less  general).  And  logic  is  concerned  with  the  import 
of  thought  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  general.  I  do  not  know 
a  single  part  of  logical  doctrine  which  is  not  concerned  with 
generality,  with  leading  up  to  it  by  induction,  or  down  from 
it  by  deduction.  But  the  generality  of  thought  does  not 
exhaust  the  import  of  thought.  Thought,  though  it  is 
general,  is  thought  about  something.  What  is  this  some- 
thing that  is  thought  about?  So  there  is  plenty  left  for 
epistemology  in  regard  to  thought.  And  in  putting  logic 
under  epistemology,  I  have  not  said  that  logic  exhausts 
the  consideration  of  thought. 

1  This  is  a  point  not  clearly  answered  in  the  books. 


14  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

Suppose  I  ask,  in  regard,  e.  g.  to  that  pillar,  Does  my  per- 
ception of  that  pillar  mean,  or  not  mean,  a  pillar  really  apart 
from  me  ?  This  is  a  real  question,  but,  as  we  have  already 
seen1,  it  is  not  a  psychological  question.  It  is  a  philo- 
sophical question  that  I  have  asked,  a  metaphysical,  an 
ontological,  and  an  epistemological  question.  As  with 
percepts,  so  with  images  and  concepts.  Does  my  con- 
cept '  man '  stand  for  a  reality  ?  What,  if  any,  real  thing 
corresponds  to  my  thought  'man'?  Such  a  question  is 
neither  psychological  nor  logical.  Logically  we  can  ask,  Is 
'  man  '  a  general  name  or  not  ?  What  is  the  definition  of  it  ? 
Logic,  with  regard  to  concepts,  culminates  in  the  doctrine 
of  definition.  But  when  I  have  defined  a  notion,  have 
I  proved  anything  of  its  reality  ?  Does  my  thought  ofr 
'  centaur  '  portend  or  imply  a  reality  as  my  thought  of  '  man ' 
does  ?  In  this  way,  then,  we  can  distinguish  between  what 
is  called  logical,  and  what  epistemological,  consideration. 
And  thus  if  logic  in  one  sense  falls  within  epistemology, 
it  is  not  the  epistemology  of  thought,  inasmuch  as  there 
are  epistemological  considerations  of  thought  apart  from 
the  logical  consideration  of  thought  in  its  generality. 

Knowledge. 

We  have  now  committed  ourselves  to  the  use  of  the 
word  '  knowledge/  a  term  I  refrained  from  bringing  forward 
in  psychology.  It  is  used,  no  doubt,  in  psychological  works  ; 
Hamilton,  among  others,  uses  it  systematically,  and  so  does 
Professor  Bain,  'cognition'  being  an  equivalent  term.  Both 
terms,  if  used  in  psychology  at  all,  should  be  used  s\  somati- 
cally and  apart  from  any  consideration  of  import,  or  else  be 

1  Elements  of  Psychology,  Lecture  XIV. 


IL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  15 

abstained  from.  The  latter  plan  to  me  seems  better,  and 
I  substitute  the  term  'intellection.'  Intellection  is  a  purely 
psychological  word,  meaning  merely  a  kind  of  conscious 
experience,  just  as  feeling  means  another  such  kind,  and 
conation  another.  Knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  is  essenti- 
ally a  word  of  philosophical,  rather  than  psychological, 
import.  Both  it  and  cognition,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out  {pp.  cit.,  p.  25),  drag  in  at  once  the  '  known'  or  cognitum, 
with  its  implication  of  import,  validity,  or  reality.  Knowledge 
is  always  of  something,  and  of  something  as  being,  as  real 
or  not  real,  as  the  case  may  be.  At  once  the  philosophical 
question  arises — Does  my  knowledge  really  represent  such 
and  such  an  object  ?  Is  the  object  real  ?  And  this  is  not 
a  psychological  consideration.  In  psychology  we  consider 
cognition  apart  from  the  notion  of  import ;  we  ask,  How 
does  cognition  come  to  pass?  not — Does  it  mean  this? 
Does  it  import  that?  It  is  true  that  when  we  are  dealing 
with  perception  in  psychology,  perceiving  implies  something 
perceived;  but  we  are  then  only  concerned  with  the  function 
of  perceiving.  But  now  we  are  concerned  with  the  work  of 
the  mind  in  relation  to  the  thing  known.  The  moment  we 
look  beyond  subjective  function  to  the  reality  with  which 
the  function  is  concerned,  we  are  no  longer  psychologising, 
we  are  not  even  concerned  with  the  question  of  import  in 
the  narrow  sense  of  logic,  but  we  are  concerned  with  import 
of  knowledge  altogether.  Knowledge  in  relation  to  the  thing 
known,  or  the  thing  known  in  relation  to  knowledge,  belongs 
to  philosophy.  In  philosophy  it  is  precisely  with  the  object 
of  thought  and  its  validity  or  import  that  we  have  to  deal — 
'  object '  and  '  valid '  understood  as  that  which  holds  for  all 
minds  alike  and  determines  action. 


16  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Belief. 

While  knowledge  is  thus  properly  to  be  limited  to  philo- 
sophical use,  there  is  another  word,  of  essentially  subjective 
import,  which  psychology  has  to  take  into  account  if  it  is  to 
be  complete,  but  which  has  also  a  prominently  philosophical 
bearing.  As  when  I  use  the  word  know  there  is  always  an 
object  of  knowledge,  so  when  I  believe  there  is  an  object  of 
belief.  Knowledge  is  subjective  function  in  relation  to  an 
object.  Belief  is  subjective  function  in  relation  to  an  object. 
I  can  raise  the  question  of  reality  in  belief  as  much  as  in 
knowledge.  No  alternative  term  for  belief  being  available 
according  as  we  are  psychologising  or  philosophising,  its 
difference  of  signification  must  in  either  case  be  carefully 
distinguished.  Generally  it  is  well  to  use  separate  terms 
for  either  aspect,  as  this  will  tend  to  break  the  habit  of 
mixing  up  the  different  considerations.  The  scope  of  (sub- 
jective) psychology  is  as  wide  as  that  of  philosophy,  but 
its  function  is  different.  The  former  deals  with  everything 
that  is — as  subjective  experience.  The  latter  deals  with 
everything  that  is — in  terms  of  ultimate  consideration.  Philo- 
sophy, again,  is  always  interpretable  as  Philosophy  of  Mind. 
Whether  it  is  contemplated  as  a  consideration  of  things  as 
known  (facts),  or  desired  and  sought  after  (aims,  ends,  ideals), 
or  as  science  of  1&z\v\g-as-thought-of,  there  is,  we  see,  always 
ultimately  a  reference  to  the  human  mind.  It  can  only  deal 
with  things  as  we  are  conscious  of  them.  This  is  the  ex- 
planation of  their  being  so  much  confused  together,  and  why 
psychology  was  so  late  in  being  separated  from  philosophy. 


LECTURE   III. 

THE  HISTORICAL   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY   AND   OF   SCIENCE. 
Resume  of  the  Function  of  Philosophy  as  compared  with  Science. 

We  have  seen  that  out  of  psychology  arise  certain  further 
questions  or  more  ultimate  considerations  called  philosophical. 
Psychology  suggests  them  more  than  any  other  science. 
They  do  not  admit  of  objective  verification,  but  have  a 
subjective  value,  and  the  historical  study  of  them  is  important 
as  giving  insight  into  the  development  of  the  human  mind. 
In  as  far  as  they  may  be  settled  at  all,  they  may  be  settled 
by  psychology,  hence  the  importance  of  the  latter  as  a  basis 
to  precede  and  introduce  the  study  of  philosophy.  If 
philosophy,  e.g.  seeks  to  show  what  the  external  world  is, 
psychology  explains  how  we  get  to  know  what  we  call 
1  external  world.'  Science  deals  not  with  what  is,  but  only  with 
what  appears,  with  those  phenomenal  aspects  of  nature  which 
inevitably  suggest — I  do  not  commit  myself — some  ultimate 
Reality.  Theory  of  Knowledge  (to  which  metaphysic  and 
ontology  are  now  subordinated),  or  philosophy  in  its 
speculative  or  theoretical  aspect,  has  to  afford  insight,  while 
philosophy  in  its  practical  aspect  makes  for  guidance. 

Philosophical  questionings,  I  repeat,  are  not  of  a  nature 
to  lead  to  definitely  verifiable  results.     Nevertheless,  philoso- 


18  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

phising  is  natural  to  the  human  mind,  and.  as  of  old,  so  now, 
such  questions  are  asked,  and  will  for  ever  be  asked.  And 
there  must  be  a  doctrine  to  cover  and  deal  with  these 
questions — questions  concerning  notions  which  science  is 
obliged  to  assume.  Philosophy  in  modern  times,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  supplementary  to,  and  in  no  sense  another  name 
for,  the  sciences.  Comte  indeed  said  that  the  business  of 
philosophy  is  to  make  out  the  relation  between  the  sciences. 
The  sciences  are  occupied  each  with  certain  aspects  or 
departments  of  nature,  or  of  things  as  they  appear l.  '  Co- 
ordinate each  science,'  said  Comte,  and  give  it  a  practical 
bearing,  a  reference  to  human  action,  and  that  is  all  that 
you  can  know  or  philosophy  can  do.  Comte  here  brings 
insight  to  bear  upon  action,  and  so  far  returns  to  the  original 
meaning  of  philosophy.  But  his  opinion  of  the  scope  of 
philosophy  is  very  unsatisfactory  in  view  of  the  incapacity^ 
of  the  sciences  to  deal  with  questions  respecting  their  ultimate 
data  and  the  ends  of  conduct.  What  is  the  difference 
between  appearance  and  reality?  What  is  space  (does  it 
exist  apart  from  the  human  mind)?  What  is  motion?  What 
is  a  cause  ?  What  is  a  quality  ?  and  what  is  a  thing  ?  None 
of  the  sciences  pretends  to  answer  these  questions,  and  yet 
they  are  implied  in  the  language  both  of  science  and  of 
common  life.  Philosophy  in  past  ages  dealt  largely  with  these 
questions  before  the  sciences  were,  and  still  concerns  itself 
with  them.  Aristotle  saw  the  necessity  for  a  deeper  inquiry 
just  as  much  as  we  do.  It  is  the  word  '  deeper,'  '  ultimate,' 
that  gives  the  special  aspect  of  meiaphysic  as  the  name  for 
philosophy  in  its  relation,  not  to  psychology,  but  to  the 
objective  sciences. 

1  Or,  we  might  say,  with  aspects  of  nature  and  with  mathematics, 
for  mathematics  is  not  a  science  of  nature. 


in.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  19 

And  the  deeper  inquiry  is  not  antagonistic  to  the  scientific. 
It  is  often  brought  against  philosophy  that  it  presents  motion 
without  progress,  but  this  is  not  correct;  there  has  been 
progress.  History  is  for  the  most  part  the  story  of  the  errors 
through  which  men  have  passed  in  trying  to  get  at  the  truth, 
and  the  history  of  philosophy,  if  good  for  nothing  else, 
would  yet  be  valuable  for  what  it  reveals  of  the  growth  of  the 
human  mind  in  its  deepest  thought  respecting  itself  confronted 
by  the  universe.'  For  all  their  many  errors  the  best  minds 
of  antiquity  struck  out  philosophical  suggestions  of  great 
value,  arrived  at  philosophical  results  of  permanent  value, 
even  though  their  positive  science  was  often  purely  fanciful. 
On  many  points  we  understand  more  than  the  ancients,  and 
many  of  their  errors  have  been  exploded  beyond  chance 
of  revival.  There  is,  and  always  will  be,  room  for  advance 
in  philosophy.  In  as  far  as  philosophy  has  the  function 
of  co-ordinating  the  results  of  the  special  sciences — and  it 
has  become  more  and  more  the  object  of  philosophy  to  do  so 
— there  must  of  course  be  advance  in  the  former  as  the  latter 
advance,  as  Comte  held.  But  if  we  also  lake  philosophy  as 
theory  of  human  knowledge,  we  still  understand  more  than 
the  earlier  thinkers,  although  our  progress  be  not  of  the 
nature  of  that  in  the  positive  sciences.  Philosophy  in  one 
sense  encircles,  extends  beyond,  comes  after  the  sciences, 
varying  as  they  vary,  but  in  another  sense  it  comes  before 
them.  It  was  not  necessary  to  know  that  the  sun  stands 
and  the  earth  moves  in  order  to  understand  the  relation  of 
substance  and  attribute,  whole  and  parts,  &c.  True,  the 
discovery  of  those  facts  had  a  most  important  philosophical 
beaiing,  as  all  great  discoveries  will  ever  have;  namely,  with 
tespect  to  the  evidence  of  sense  and  man's  position  in  the 
universe.     But  there  was  a  region  of  philosophy  not  directly 


20 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [lect. 


touched  by  scientific  discoveries,  and  we  may  find  a  profit 
in  surveying  these  philosophies,  even  though  Aristotle  and 
Plato  had  a  defective  astronomy.  It  is  one  function  of 
philosophy  to  wait  on  the  special  sciences,  and  to  be  ever 
ready  to  pluck  up  its  stakes  and  widen  its  boundaries.  For 
philosophical  and  scientific  definitions  are  always  changing ; 
they  are  a  progress  towards  the  expression  of  what  is.  But 
it  is  also  apparent  that  to  a  certain  extent  philosophy  has 
an  independent  course  to  pursue,  and  has  often  to  make 
advances,  and  did  often  arrive  at  truths  about  the  whole 
frame  of  things  before  men  developed  those  aptitudes  and 
powers  from  which  has  sprung  all  modern  science. 

History  in  Philosophy  and  in  Science. 

The  history  of  philosophy  has  an  importance  in  relation 
to  philosophy  which  the  history  of  science  has  not  to  science. 
However  interesting  it  may  be  to  compare  present  with  past 
conceptions  of  geology,  ancient  with  modern  physics,  these 
and  all  the  sciences  are  adequately  taught  as  bodies 
-of  established  doctrine  without  necessarily  involving  any 
reference  to  past  theories ;  at  any  rate,  their  teaching  does 
not  at  all  depend  upon  knowledge  of  their  history.  False 
scientific  teachings  have  to  be  forgotten;  inadequate 
scientific  teachings,  while  leading  to  better,  need  not  be 
remembered.  Interest  in  them  is  mainly  antiquarian.  Or 
if  it  is  not  felt  for  the  teachings  as  such,  but  for  them  as 
illustrative  of  scientific  method,  this  is  to  have  taken  tHem 
out  of  the  special  sciences  and  to  have  brought  them  into 
the  domain  of  philosophy,  which  has  a  property  in  the  older 
forms,  the  cast-off  garments  of  the  sciences  which  these  no 
longer  possess  for  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  philo- 
sophers of  all  schools  are  for  ever  throwing  backward  glances 


in.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  21 

at  past  thinkers  and  the  results  they  elicited.  The  history 
of  philosophy  is  a  recognised  part  of  philosophic  discipline. 
The  reason  for  this  difference  from  what  we  find  in  science 
lies  in  the  nature  of  philosophy,  in  its  being  always  concerned 
with  ultimate,  not  with  immediate,  explanation,  not  wiih  ways 
of  re-expressing  the  facts  of  nature,  or  giving  an  explanation 
of  them  relative  to  other  and  more  general  facts  or  concep- 
tions— resolving  sound,  e.g.  into  a  mode  of  motion — but 
with  the  explanation  that  is  demanded  with  reference  to  the 
menial  nature  of  man,  to  man,  i.e.  as  a  thinking  being. 

In  chemistry,  e.g.  we  analyse  water  into  its  elements, 
study  their  properties,  and  re-combine.  We  have  thereby 
given  a  scientific  account  of  water  in  so  far  as  it  falls  under 
chemistry.  The  mechanical  properties  of  water  would  be 
the  subject  of  investigation  under  another  science,  and  so 
on  for  every  conceivable  relation  of  water  as  an  object 
among  other  natural  objects.  But  our  intellectual  concern 
in  it  as  thinking  beings  is  not  even  then  exhausted.  It  is 
an  object,  we  say,  a  substance,  a  property — what  are  these? 
What  is  analysis,  and  what  composition  ?  Empirical  science 
does  not  settle  these  questions,  and  does  not  even  tell  us 
when  they  cannot  be  settled.  I  should  say  the  decision  is 
given  by  philosophy  as  the  ultimate  interpretation  of  experi- 
ence, even  in  cases  where  the  decision  is  nothing  more 
satisfactory  than  a  non  liquet. 

The  answer,  whatever  it  be,  should  hold  good  universally. 
The  question  of  substance  and  attribute,  e.g.  was  raised  in 
regard  to  water :  the  settlement,  such  as  it  is,  applies  to  the 
whole  of  nature.  In  one  aspect,  however,  this  peculiarity 
of  philosophy  is  merely  a  difference  in  degree.  All  science, 
worthy  of  the  name,  is  also  general  in  its  character.  To 
make  good,  therefore,  the  opposition  between  philosophy  and 


22  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

the  special  sciences,  the  extraordinary  universality  of  philo- 
sophic dicta  must  rest  on  a  special  ground,  and  that  is  that, 
whereas  in  the  special  sciences  we  consider  relations  among 
facts  and  data  known,  in  philosophy  we  consider  facts,  data 
and  relations  as  /mown  or  knowable.  Now  whatever  be  the 
objects  known,  though  they  be  taken  from  sciences  the  most 
widely  removed,  anything  that  we  settle  about  the  knowing 
of  them  must  stand  good  for  all  alike.  The  principles  of 
knowledge  are  of  constant  and  universal  application;  and 
philosophy  is  pre-eminently  the  science  of  them  and  all  that 
they  involve. 

But  if  such  be  the  character  of  philosophy,  we  may  now 
begin  to  see  why  it  is  natural  and  right  that  the  philosopher 
should  keep  strict  account  of  older  speculation,  and  would 
err  if  he  neglected  it. 

Procedure. 

Now,  seeing  the  importance  of  the  historical  method  in 
philosophy,  and  how  greatly  the  thoughts  of  men  have 
varied  with  regard  to  ultimate  questions,  it  is  better  that 
I  should  glance  over  the  history  of  such  thoughts,  and  set 
out  the  views  of  the  best  minds  throughout  time,  than  give 
only  my  own  individual  conclusions. 

For  our  practical  purposes  we  discount  Eastern  thought, 
and  also  that  of  the  earliest  civilisations  generally,  confining 
ourselves  to  the  Western  philosophy  which  began  among 
Greek  thinkers  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  b.c.  600,  but 
dealing  more  at  length  with  those  philosophical  conceptions 
of  the  seventeenth  century  which  appeal  more  deeply  to  us 
than  those  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as  being  more  akin  to  our 
own.  When  we  take  a  view  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  we 
find  that  philosophical  thinkers  have  been  occupied  in  the 
main  with  three  questions  : — 


in.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  23 

1.  The  question  of  Universals — i.e.  of  the  relation  of  the 
Universal  to  the  Particular — known  also  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  One  and  the  Many.  This  is  predominant  in  the 
Scholastic  period,  and  was  also  prominent  in  the  Ancient 
period. 

2.  The  Relation  of  Reason  to  Experience,  in  explaining 
the  Nature  or  Import  of  Knowledge.  This  dominates  all 
modern  philosophy. 

3.  The  Reality  of  a  Material  World,  or  Perception  of  an 
External  World,  and  the  Nature  of  Mind  in  relation  to  it. 
This  has  been  raised  especially  by  British  philosophers. 

Every  philosophy  deals  with  each,  but  with  a  different 
degree  of  emphasis.  Hamilton  divides  philosophers  according 
to  their  answer  to  the  third  question ;  hence  his  view  of  the 
earlier  philosophers  is  distorted,  since  they  were  really 
concerned  with  the  larger  question  of  the  nature,  or  origin, 
or,  more  correctly,  import  of  knowledge,  in  which  the  more 
special  third  question  is  involved.  This  shows  that  he  is  so 
engrossed  in  that  particular  question  that  he  thinks  every 
one  else  must  have  been  so.  He  derived  this  standpoint 
from  his  master,  Reid ;  and  Reid's  standpoint  was  a  protest 
against  that  of  Berkeley.  The  answer  to  any  one  of  the 
questions  will  determine  a  man's  answer  to  either  of  the  others. 

But  we  must  first  take  a  survey  in  outline  of  the  growth 
of  Western  philosophy  during  the  last  2,500  years. 


For  Lfxture  IV  read  : — 

G.  C.  Robertson,  Philosophical  Remains,  '  Philosophy  as  a  Subject 
of  Study.' 

Ueberweg,  History  of  Philosophy,  vol.  i,  'The  Philosophy  of 
Antiquity '  (large  text). 

Or  the  same  epoch  in  Erdmann's  or  Schwegler's  History  of 
Philosophy. 


LECTURE  IV. 

HISTORICAL    SKETCH    OF    GREEK    PHILOSOPHY. 
Main  Epochs  of  Philosophy  and  Culminating  Periods. 

Western  philosophy  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  Thales, 
b.c.  600.  Thus  we  have  lo  take  account  of  2,500  years  of 
constant  reflective  thinking.  These  are  grouped  in  three 
main  periods — (1)  Ancient;  (2)  Mediaeval,  Scholastic,  or 
Ecclesiastic ;  (3)  Modern.  The  first  period  terminates  in 
the  sixth  century  a.d.,  and  the  second  in  the  fourteenth^ 
century.  Of  all  these  centuries  only  about  seven  or  eight 
are  really  important.  The  times  in  which  the  human  race 
was  really  effectively  thinking  were  not  long,  and  all  the 
effective  thought  in  Western  philosophy,  all  that  has  yielded 
permanent  results  of  any  value,  falls  within  three  epochs, 
included  by  those  three  main  periods  and  comprising  some 
seven  hundred  years  out  of  the  2,500,  to  wit,  b.c  450-250, 
a.d.  1 150- 1 350,  and  from  1600  onwards.  The  rest  is  all  of 
quite  subordinate  importance.  It  might  be  even  more  accurate 
to  end  the  first  period  of  florescence  at  b.c  300,  but  I  extend 
it  by  preference  so  as  to  include  Stoics  and  Epicureans. 
The  accompanying  diagram  shows  at  once  the  three  main 
periods  and  their  respective  culminating  epochs.  It  will  be 
seen  that  the  former  overlap  considerably ;  no  sharp  divisions 
in  time  would  accurately  represent  the  different  developments 
of  thought.     There  is  the  more  or  less  positive  break  entitled 


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26  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

the  Dark  Ages ;  there  is  the  transition  period  of  the  fifteenth 
century ;  again,  there  are  the  two  subsidiary  movements  of 
the  rise  of  Arabian  philosophy  (a.d.  800-1100)  and,  under  its 
influence,  of  Jewish  philosophy.  These,  however,  did  not 
affect  modern  Europe  in  general. 

First,  'Ancient,'  or  Greek  Period. 

Western  philosophy  did  not  absolutely  begin  with  Thales. 
There  was  a  tendency  to  philosophy  among  all  the  early 
civilisations  bordering  on  the  East  of  which  we  have  remains. 
But  it  is  principally  in  Thales  and  the  inquisitive,  quick-witted 
Ionian  Greeks,  dating  from  about  b.  c.  600,  that  there  began 
in  Asia  Minor  that  conscious  and  disinterested  search  for  an 
explanation  of  the  All  which  philosophy  implies.  For  five 
hundred  years  this  movement,  continuous  though  not  always 
progressive,  was  Greek.  Then  into  the  philosophy  of  practice* 
Roman  legal  conceptions,  the  spiritual  fruit  of  centuries  of 
sturdy  Roman  action,  began  to  be  introduced ;  Hebrew  and 
Eastern  ideas  of  the  universal  order  and  of  human  destiny 
also  entered ;  but  Greek  acuteness  and  mental  restlessness  re- 
mained always  the  truly  active  forces  till  another  five  hundred 
years  and  more  had  elapsed.  Finally,  in  a.d.  529,  Justinian, 
a  Christian  emperor,  closed  the  pagan  Greek  schools  and 
cast  out  the  professors  and  commentators  with  whom  re- 
mained the  tradition  of  Aristotle  and  Plato.  Within  these 
centuries  Greek  thinkers  had  put  forward  solutions  of  nearly 
all  the  chief  questions  of  philosophy,  some  necessarily 
relative  to  the  positive  knowledge  of  the  time,  which  now 
appeal  only  to  our  curiosity,  others  of  enduring  value  to  the 
end  of  time.  In  the  history  of  humanity  there  is  nothing 
more  astounding  than  the  influence  exerted  by  the  thought 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle.     Justinian  and  his  advisers  fancied 


iv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  27 

they  had  cast  out  the  evil  spirits ;  but  the  splits  came  back 
from  wandering  up  and  down  on  the  earth  and  entered  with 
sevenfold  power  into  the  Church  and  the  schools,  and  it  was 
and  is  vain  to  think  any  more  of  a  new  exorcism. 

Tivo  Stages  in  Greek  Philosophy. 

Greek  thought  was  strictly  philosophy— a  serious  attempt 
to  think  out  a  connected  view  of  the  All.  In  those  Ionian 
cities  on  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor  arose  men  who,  looking 
out  on  nature,  i.e.  the  external  world,  tried  to  find  a  general 
expression  for  it.  Their  philosophy  was  not  properly  reli- 
gion. Some  of  the  chief  among  them  had  religious  natures, 
but  the  central  idea  of  Greek  philosophy,  as  represented  by 
Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  the  Stoics,  and  Epicureans,  which 
is  one  of  morality  and  conduct,  is  not  found  in  that  Pre- 
Socratic  period.  After  it  all  reasoned  knowledge  came  to  be 
viewed  by  the  best  Greek  philosophers  as  bearing  on  the 
Perfect  Life.  Philosophy  became  divorced  completely  from 
inquiries  into  what  are  now  considered  the  ultimate  assump- 
tions of  physical  science.  But  prior  to  the  fifth  century  b.c. 
there  is  no  explicit  reference  to  the  subjective  life;  till 
towards  the  age  of  Socrates  there  is  no  systematic  practice 
of  introspection  now  held  fundamental  in  philosophy. 

Greek  Philosophy  and  Positive  Science. 

In  the  theories  of  Democritus,  however,  a  contemporary  of 
Socrates,  but  whom  we  know  only  at  second  hand  through 
Aristotle,  Epicurus  and  Lucretius,  there  are  expressions 
with  regard  to  nature  of  which  modern  science  has  made 
use.  He  started  the  theory  of  Atomism,  i.e.  that  the 
material  world  consists  of  a  multiplicity  of  atoms  or  inde- 
structible   particles.      The    mechanical    philosophy   of   the 


28  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

seventeenth  century  has,  in  some  respects,  a  close  affinity  to 
the  Atomism  of  Demociitus.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  Socrates 
treated  this  definite  scientific  theory  with  scorn.  Demociitus 
and  Archimedes  (b.c.  287-213)  come  nearest  to  modern 
science  of  all  the  ancients.  But  they  had  no  immediate 
successors. 

The  Sophists  and  Socrates. 

At  the  time  of  Socrates,  Greek  civilisation  was  at  its 
height.  The  Sophists  were  then  teaching  the  art  of  rhetoric 
and  the  conduct  of  public  business,  as  well  as  professing  to 
teach  men  conduct  in  general  on  a  rather  superficial  basis. 
They  have  been  much  decried,  but  have  found  a  modern 
defender  in  Grote,  and  the  older  conception  of  them  as  mere 
charlatans  has  now  passed  away. 

Contemporary  with  them  lived  a  man,  himself  called  a 
Sophist,  a  citizen  of  Athens  all  his  life,  who  there  tried  to, 
expose  them  and  turn  away  his  fellow-citizens  from  following 
their  teaching — I  mean,  of  course,  Socrates  (469-399). 
Socrates  distinctly  discountenanced  the  investigation  of  the 
physical  universe.  He  first,  in  the  West,  put  himself  at  the 
subjective  point  of  view,  and  taught  that  the  proper  study 
of  mankind  was  Man. 

Plato  and  Aristotle. 

His  pupil  Plato  (427-347)  took  up  his  standpoint,  putting 
himself  at  the  subjective  point  of  view  without  regard  for 
knowledge  of  external  nature  or  science.  He  carried  farther 
than  any  one  after  him  the  method  of  thinking  by  way  of 
rational  or  reasoned  speculation,  and  has  ever  stood,  in  con- 
sequence, as  the  typical  representative  of  (Platonic)  Idealism. 
His  system  might  be  called  a  depreciation  of  sense  and  a 
glorification  of  reason. 


iv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  29 

Aristotle  (384-322),  pupil  of  Plato,  distinctly  philosophises 
from  a  subjective  point  of  view,  is  a  mental  philosopher. 
As  with  Socrates  and  Plato,  his  philosophy  leads  up  to 
conduct  of  life.  But  with  regard  to  nature,  he  is  of  a 
different  disposition  from  Plato,  being  interested  just  in 
that  matter  which  Plato  despised.  Hence  his  system  in- 
cludes not  only  a  physical  philosophy  of  nature,  but  albO 
a  descriptive,  if  not  explanatory,  science  of  nature;  e.g.  he 
wrote  long  treatises  on  the  animal  world.  Nevertheless,  his 
views  of  ^  nature  are  mainly  superficial,  and  his  so-called 
science  of  nature  is  mainly  speculative,  and  takes  no  account 
of  the  necessity  for  verification.  His  interest  in  man  and 
nature  is  ultimately  only  with  a  view  to  human  conduct. 

Epicurus  and  Zeno. 

This  is  also  the  predominant  idea  with  the  Stoics  and 
the  Epicureans.  In  the  moral  character  of  their  philosophy 
they  are  at  one  with  the  Socratics,  as  well  as  in  that  they 
seek  to  determine  human  conduct  from  a  view  of  conformity 
to  (human)  'nature/  They  differ  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  in 
flying  less  high  in  rational  speculation.  There  are  begin- 
nings in  their  works  of  sober  psychological  inquiry.  They 
are  Materialists  of  a  very  extreme  type.  Yet  neither  school 
did  anything  to  advance  positive  science.  Down  to  B.C.  250, 
which  covers  Epicurus  and  the  more  important  Greek 
Stoics,  there  are  no  new  philosophic  ideas  introduced,  but 
we  find  an  overpowering  interest  in  human  conduct.  Both 
the  Platonic  school  (the  Academics)  and  the  Aristotelian  (the 
Peripatetics)  were  for  a  time  overshadowed  by  them,  greatly 
though  the  influence  of  both  Plato  and  Aristotle  had  worked 
in  Stoicism  as  in  Epicureanism.  Zeno  and  Epicurus  both 
were  influenced  by  Aristotle ;  Epicurus  in  his  ethical  philo- 


3° 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 


sophy  was  largely  connected  with  Plato.  By  his  natural 
philosophy,  Epicurus  is  also  connected  with  Democritus. 
The  Cynics  and  Cyrenaics  connect  Zeno  and  Epicurus  respec- 
tively with  Socrates.  They  began  their  work  at  a  time  when 
the  energy  of  Greek  thought  had  in  a  manner  spent  itself, 
and  when,  in  consequence  of  political  disintegration,  men's 
thoughts  began  to  be  turned  to  individual  conduct  and  quiet 
life.  Hence  the  relatively  greater  importance  of  their  ethical 
theories. 

All  the  effective  thinking  of  Greek  philosophy  was  the 
work  of  these  few  men,  and  they  are  the  founders  of  all  the 
Greek  schools  of  thought.  We  may  see  this  more  clearly  in 
diagram. 


Socrates 
(b.c.  469-399) 


/(\        Plato 
■\\4>7-347) 


"•-,. 


s 

Co:. 


^\ 


•8! 


\ 


Aristotle 
(384  322) 


Democritus 
(b.  460) 


^\ 


I 

: 
I 

Plotinus 
(a.d.  205-269) 
1 


A 


•=»Epicurus         ^  ' 
,  N  Zeno 

(34770)      (350258) 

Lucretius      r   .  * 
,  s         tpictetus 

(,95    5a;      (fl.A.D.9o-Il8) 

M.  Aurelius 
(120-180) 


Porphyry 
(233  304)    * 


Proclus 
(4ia  485) 


iv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  31 

Pre-Socratic  and  Platonic  Thought. 

Let  us  now,  before  coming  to  the  Christian  era,  retrace  our 
steps  and  bring  the  Pre-Socratic  philosophy  into  some  sort  of 
relation  with  the  teachings  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 

We  see  it  during  those  two  centuries  preceding  Socrates 
active,  acute,  but  slow  in  development,  a  movement  of  great 
comprehensiveness  and  variety,  and  of  remarkable  philosophic 
depth.  Yet  some  of  what  are  to  us  the  simplest  conceptions 
were  then  not  attained,  and  it  is  only  with  Socrates  and 
Plato  that  philosophy  begins  to  be  to  some  extent  '  modern.' 
Scantiness  of  surviving  materials  and  a  general  lack  of 
philosophic  development  justify  a  somewhat  summary  treat- 
ment. Yet  some  of  their  thinking  was  important  for  Plato 
and  even  for  us.  There  were  six  Pre-Socratics  who  most 
strongly  influenced  Plato — 

Heracleitus,  the  Ionian,  fl.  about  B.C.  504. 

Parmenides,  of  Elea,  Magna  Graecia,j#.  about  b.c.  504.1 

Anaxagoras,  of  Clazomense,  B.C.  500-428. 

Pythagoras,  of  Samos  and  Magna  Grsecia,  b.c  575-500. 

Democritus,  of  Abdera,  b.  b.c.  460. 

Protagoras,  chief  of  the  Sophists,  b.c.  480-411. 

The  problem  of  knowledge  as  it  presented  itself  to  Plato 
was  an  effort  to  transcend  and  get  over  the  antithesis  between 
the  views  of  the  first  two.  The  other  thinkers  as  well  as 
Socrates  gave  him  suggestions  towards  overcoming  this 
opposition.  Of  these,  the  Pythagoreans  are  of  the  least 
importance.  Their  influence  only  became  prominent,  as 
expressed  by  one  of  them,  Philolaus,  at  the  time  when 
Plato's  theory  of  ideas  was  undergoing  its  later  development. 

1  According  to  Mr.  Burnet  {Early  Greek  Philosophy,  §  70)  this  date 
is  too  early  by  at  least  thirty  years.     Ed. 


32  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

The  Pythagorean  was  the  most  enduring  of  the  Pre-Socratic 
schools. 

Plato  never  mentions  Democritus  by  name,  but  it  is 
probably  to  this  great  contemporary  he  refers  as  representing 
Materialism,  when  setting  out  in  conscious  antithesis  his  own 
Immaterialism.  Democritus,  living  at  Abdera,  never  came 
under  the  influence  of  Socrates.  Anticipated  by  Leucippus 
early  in  the  fifth  century,  he  worked  out  his  system  from  the 
basis  .of  the  earlier  thinkers.  He  is  the  proper  antithesis 
to  Plato.  Plato's  philosophy  is  teleological — founded  on  final 
causes,  the  ethical  element  being  uppermost.  Democritus' 
philosophy  is  mechanical,  and  was  the  first  to  be  developed 
as  such.  His  importance  by  the  side  of  Plato  was  first 
recognised  by  Lange  (in  his  History  of  Materialism),  who 
holds  him  to  be  the  more  important  thinker  of  the  two,  in 
so  far  that  modern  scientific  theory  joins  on  to  him  more 
than  on  to  Plato,  whose  views  are  largely  discredited.  His 
very  prolific  works  are  mostly  lost. 

The  antithesis  between  Heracleitus  and  Parmenides  was 
metaphysical  rather  than  epistemological.  Their  philosophy, 
as  with  all  Pre-Socratics,  was  cosmological,  nevertheless  it  is 
epistemological  also.  All  tried  to  find  some  simpler  expres- 
sion of  the  complex  experience  of  daily  life,  but  Heracleitus 
and  Parmenides  had  a  novel  and  deeper  insight.  Though 
Heracleitus  adduced  fire  as  a  fundamental  principle,  it  is 
the  fact  of  ceaseless  Change  or  Motion  in  nature  that  strikes 
him — navra  prf.  Parmenides  was  struck  by  Permanence  and 
Fixity  in  nature.  The  latter  emphasised  the  One,  the 
former  saw  chiefly  the  Many.  Thus  Heracleitus  had  to 
reconcile  with  his  theory  the  apparent  fixity  of  things; 
Parmenides  had  to  make  the  apparent  change  in  things 
square    with   his.     Heracleitus   accounted   better   for   fixity 


iv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  33 

than  Parmenides  did  for  change.  Both  views  were  of  interest 
to  Plato. 

Anaxagoras  introduced  a  new  principle  as  determining 
universal  being,  viz.  vovs,  or  reason.  This,  as  compared  with 
others  brought  forward  by  Pre-Socratics,  e.g.  water,  air,  fire, 
was  apparently  subjective ;  actually  however  for  him  voiis  is 
a  purely  objective  moving  principle,  and  he  is  as  cosmological 
as  the  rest. 

With  all  of  these  there  is  latent  the  beginning  of  an 
epistemological  theory.  The  distinction  between  experience, 
as  we  actually  find  it,  and  reflexion  on  our  experience  is 
implicit  in  all ;  but  no  one  marked  out  clearly  the  difference 
between  experience  and  reflexion,  between  sense  and  thought. 
They  did  not  ask  what  the  relation  is  between  the  two, 
nor  how  knowledge  arises  from  both ;  they  all  thought  of 
knowing  in  terms  of  sense. 

But  the  Sophists  and  Socrates,  with  the  doctrine  of  '  Know 
thyself,'  brought  the. question  to  the  front,  causing  the  theory 
of  knowledge  to  enter  on  a  new  phase.  Philosophy,  from 
being  cosmological,  became  anthropological.  With  Anaxa- 
goras, man  is  part  cf  the  universe.  But  Protagoras  and 
Socrates  view  the  universe  through  man.  Man  is  put  before 
the  universe — man  as  knower  (theoretical  aspect  of  philo- 
sophy) and  as  doer  (practical  aspect).  The  Pre-Socratics, 
with  their  definite  theories  of  being,  were  ontologists  rather 
than  epistemologists,  making  no  definite  reference  to  the 
subject  as  such.  So  far  as  they  are  epistemologists  they 
agree,  however  much  they  differ  metaphysically.  They  all, 
namely,  are  Sensationalists.  They  take  account  of  sensation 
only,  and  of  this  as  something  proceeding  in  us  in  a  material 
way. 

Protagoras,  on   the   other  hand,  treated  the  problem  of 


34  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

knowledge  so  much  from  the  subjective  point  of  view  that  he 
never  got  beyond  that  standpoint.  With  him  knowledge  is  im- 
possible. There  could  of  course  be  no  knowledge  apart  from 
individual  experience,  but  beyond  that  individual  experience 
it  was  impossible  to  get.  Knowledge  is  sense-perception, 
infinitely  varied  and  changing;  man,  the  individual  per- 
cipient, is,  through  his  particular  sensations,  the  '  measure  of 
all  things' — for  himself.  Thus  he  despaired  of  physical 
science,  nor  did  he  attempt  any  other  kind  of  science,  but 
devoted  himself  to  practical  life.  Thus,  in  their  consideration 
of  the  conduct  of  life,  the  Sophists  employed  moral  persua- 
sion instead  of  laying  down  any  principles  of  moral  science. 
Socrates  also  despaired  of  a  knowledge  of  external  things, 
holding  that  our  experience  of  such  is  so  completely  relative 
to  the  individual  that  knowledge  proper,  i.  e.  having  ob- 
jective validity,  is  impossible.  Nevertheless  he  was  not 
content  to  drop  epistemological  considerations  and  go  into 
practical  life,  but,  resigning  physical  science  as  a  worthy 
or  possible  object  of  search,  he  declared  that  a  knowledge 
of  man  as  a  moral  agent  was  possible.  Though  unable 
to  get  a  knowledge  of  things,  man  can  attain  a  knowledge 
of  virtue.  Accordingly  Socrates  set  himself  to  formulate 
a  science  of  moral  conceptions,  even  to  the  identification 
of  virtue  and  knowledge.  He  attempted  to  get  at  a  definition 
of  ethical  notions  by  the  generalisation  of  particulars,  and 
thus  to  form  concepts  scientifically  true.  Scientific  know- 
ledge for  Socrates  is  generalisation  of  particulars  in  the 
moral  sphere,  but  not  outside  it.  Science  for  him  was 
general  knowledge — to  know  particulars  through  the  concept. 
This  view  of  the  general  notion  as  embodying  science  first 
found  expression  in  the  teaching  of  Socrates.  It  is  Socratic 
conceptualism. 


iv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  35 

Plato's  '  Theory  of  Ideas  '  is  a  development  of  the  Socratic 
conceplualism.  Pie  inherited  both  the  concept  of  Socrates 
and  also  his  high  moral  purpose.  But  Plato  did  not  drop 
the  general  problem  of  knowledge ;  he  asks,  '  What  is 
knowledge  ? '  and,  '  How  is  knowledge  possible  ? ' — questions 
which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates  {Thecetelus,  &c), 
but  which  the  latter  never  really  asked,  since  he  never 
conceived  the  problem  of  conduct  as  one  to  be  solved  by 
the  problem  of  knowledge  put  universally. 

End  of  the  First  Period. 

We  shall  inquire  into  Plato's  theories  and  those  of  Aristotle 
when  dealing  more  specifically  with  those  main  questions 
referred  to  at  the  end  of  my  third  lecture.  Here  we  need 
only  briefly  notice  the  conclusion  of  the  period  of  'ancient' 
philosophy. 

The  Aristotelian  and  Platonic  schools  went  on,  but  in  the 
later  Greek  and  Roman  period  fell,  as  we  have  seen,  into 
abeyance  before  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism.  There  was  no 
advance  in  pure  philosophy  in  Greece  beyond  Aristotle's 
time.  The  strong  ethical  bent  inaugurated  by  Socrates,  but 
tempered  by  the  universal  genius  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  pre- 
vailed fully  by  the  third  century.  The  full  weight  of  Aristotle's 
influence  did  not  really  tell  until  the  Scholastic  period  and  after 
that ;  in  the  early  Mediaeval  period  it  was  overshadowed  by 
Platonism.  The  two  or  three  names  of  importance  in  Roman 
philosophy  fall  under  Epicureans,  e.g.  Lucretius,  or  Stoics, 
e.g.  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.  Cicero 
(b.c.  44)  was  an  Eclectic  thinker,  interesting  chiefly  for  the 
information  he  gives  of  the  various  movements. 

If  by  the  side  of  these  we  take  thinkers  who  were  not 
metaphysicians  but  scientific  investigators,  we  see  here  and 


36  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

there  one  working  with  such  success  as  to  influence  posterity, 
and,  notably  in  astronomy,  making  correct  conclusions  on 
false  grounds — e.g.  predicting  eclipses  on  fallacious  concep- 
tions of  the  relations  of  sun  and  earth.  When  we  say  the 
ancients  had  no  science,  we  make  exception  of  Hippocrates 
(medicine,  B.C.  460-357),  Euclid  the  geometer  of  Alexandria 
(fl.  b.c.  323-283),  Archimedes  the  physicist,  the  founder  of 
genuine  Positive  Science,  Hipparchus  (fl.  B.C.  160-145)  and 
Ptolemy  (fl.  a.  d.  139-161),  the  astronomers. 

An  offshoot  from  Platonic  idealism  and  the  so-called 
Academic  philosophy  in  the  Christian  era  was  Neo-Platonism. 
I  have  said  that  Greek  philosophy  was  not  religious.  Its 
latest  growth  however,  Neo-Platonism,  sought  to  meet  a 
religious  want  born  of  the  social  conditions  of  the  time,  and 
entered  into  direct  competition  with  the  young  Christian 
faith  for  mastery  over  all  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  men, , 
the  most  important  Neo-Platonist  being  Plotinus.  But 
Greek  philosophers  had  no  kind  of  scruple  as  to  the  ques- 
tions they  raised.  Socrates  had  indeed  scruples  regarding 
physical  inquiry,  but  these  were  curiously  unlike  later  and 
modern  scruples,  and  are  to  be  explained  from  the  state  of 
contemporary  knowledge  in  regard  to  the  subjects  more  than 
from  anything  else.  They  bore  on  the  limitations  of  what 
could  be  settled  and  how  to  settle  it,  and  not  at  all  of  what 
ought,  or  ought  not,  to  be  discussed.  Hence  Greek  philo- 
sophy is  the  prototype  of  all  earnest  and  unfettered  thought. 


For  Lectures  V  and  VI  read  : — 
Ueberweg,  op.  cit.  I,  pp.  356,  357,  367,  368  (for  the  way  in  which 
the  Scholastic  thinkers  got  Greek  thought);  pp.  410,  411  (for  the 
way  in  which  Greek  works  went  to  the  Arabs,  and  were  translated 
into  Syriac  and  then  into  Arabic)  ;  pp.  417-419  (for  the  influence 
of  both  on  Jewish  philosophy).     Also  pp.  430  432. 


LECTURE  V. 

MEDIAEVAL    PHILOSOPHY. 
Divisions. 

Our  second  or  Mediaeval  period  of  Christian  or  Ecclesias- 
tical Philosophy  is  divisible  into  two  sections:  (i)  Patristic 
Philosophy,  (2)  Scholastic  Philosophy.  The  former,  beginning 
in  the  second  century,  culminated  in  Augustin  (a.d.  354- 
430),  then  languished  on  through  the  virtually  positive  break 
of  the  Dark  Ages,  while  the  break-up  of  the  older  Western 
civilisation  was  proceeding.  The  latter  (2)  dates  from  the 
eleventh  century,  when  philosophy  was  reviving  in  the  mon- 
astic schools  founded  largely  by  Charlemagne  about  a.d.  800, 
when  society  had  assumed  somewhat  of  the  form  of  modern 
nationalities,  and  when  universities  had  just  been,  or  were 
about  to  be,  founded.  The  doctors  of  the  Church  were 
called  scholastici  viri,  and  their  exposition  of  Christian 
dogma  according  to  Greek  principles  is  known  as  Scho- 
lastic Philosophy,  still  taught  to-day  in  Catholic  schools. 
After  William  of  Ockham  (d.  1347)  it  began  to  break  up, 
and  there  intervenes  the  transitional  period  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries  ushering  in  Modern  Philosophy. 

Authority  and  Philosophy. 

When  Simplicius  and  his  Neo-Platonist  companions,  the 
last    representatives    of   Hellenic    philosophy,   were   driven 


38  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

eastwards  by  the  action  of  Justinian,  in  a.d.  529,  and 
the  Athenian  schools,  for  the  first  time  since  the  age  of 
Socrates  and  Plato,  were  deserted  and  dumb,  there  was 
left  the  Christian  Church,  which  had  grown  for  five  centuries 
till  it  was  so  strong  that  emperors'  edicts  stood  at  its 
command,  and  so  little  unconscious  of  its  future  glory  and 
its  power,  so  little  indisposed  to  dominate  the  thoughts  of 
men,  that  the  crushing  out  of  the  philosophical  schools  was 
but  the  last  of  a  long  series  of  blows  levelled  by  it  at  the 
authority  of  human  thinking.  Unless  we  form  a  true  con- 
ception of  the  historical  relation  of  the  Church  to  philosophic 
thought,  we  cannot  comprehend  the  modern  philosophy 
begun  by  Descartes. 

Greek  speculation,  though  it  often  had  to  pick  its  steps 
among  established  faiths  (remember  the  fate  of  Socrates !) 
was,  as  we  said,  pre-eminently  disinterested  in  its  search  after* 
reasoned  truth.  Now  too  since  the  last  three  hundred  years 
it  is  fully  conceded  that  the  human  mind  may  search  out 
anything  and  everything  up  to  the  limit  of  its  powers,  in  the 
bare  interest  of  truth  and  intelligent  insight.  But  between 
this  recurring  phase  of  opinion  there  was  an  interval  when 
liberty  of  thought  was  not  the  watchword  of  most,  nor 
even  of  the  most  enlightened,  minds.  This  interval,  coin- 
cident with  the  period  of  supremacy  of  the  Church  in  all 
departments  of  life,  dates  back  to  the  beginnings  of  the 
Christian  movement,  and  covers  an  interval  whose  magnitude 
it  takes  an  effort,  not  often  made,  fully  to  conceive.  Even 
pagan  philosophy,  viz.  in  its  Neo-Platonist  phase,  was  much 
affected  by  the  principles  and  professions  of  the  growing 
Church.  Lst  us  remember  that  the  best  Greek  thought 
was  excogitated  in  some  four  hundred  years  and  less, 
and  that  modern  philosophy  only  dates  back  three  centuries. 


v.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  39 

We  have  thus  1600  years  to  account  for  as  against  those 
seven  or  eight  hundred.  Reduce  this  term  as  we  may 
by  the  fringes  of  the  dwindling  of  the  first  and  the 
earliest  growth  of  the  latest  periods,  still  there  remains 
a  clear  thousand  of  years  during  which  it  was  not  open 
to  men  to  think  as  they  liked — and  this  is  a  huge  slice 
out  of  the  history  of  humanity.  What  the  Church  did,  or 
permitted  to  be  done  for  the  enlightenment  of  the  race  took 
three  times  as  long  as  the  great  deeds  that  are  crowded 
into  the  something  more  than  three  centuries  from  Bacon 
and  Descartes  till  the  present.  Those  of  course  were  very 
different  times  from  ours,  and  there  was  plenty  of  other 
work,  hard  and  grim,  for  the  Church  to  do,  and  the  Church 
did  much  of  it  bravely.  But  we  must  not  forget  that 
the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  were  as  long  as  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth.  And  not  to  forget  this,  but  to 
remember  and  ponder  it,  in  connexion  with  the  intellectual 
history  of  mankind,  is  one  of  the  first  things  the  student 
of  philosophical  history  is  called  upon  to  do. 

Greek  Philosophy  in  Harness. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  the  Church  finally 
stamped  out  the  very  feeble  remnant  representing  Greek 
thought.  That  date  is  also  critical  in  another  way.  Not 
only  was  it  then  that  the  Church  grasped  the  reins,  but 
a  turning-point  was  also  reached  in  her  internal  develop- 
ment. As  in  after-ages  the  Church  did  not  so  much  repress 
thought  as  ^wzpress  it  within  her  own  limits,  so  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  she  at  this  date  had  stood  altogether 
outside  of  the  philosophical  current.  The  Christian  religion, 
viewed  philosophically,  rivalled  the  Stoic  and  Epicurean 
schools  as  a  way  of  thinking  towards  an  ideal  of  human 


4o  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

conduct.  The  rules  of  life  were  given  not  as  rational,  but 
as  a  revelation  from  on  high.  But  in  time,  as  the  Church 
grew  and  brought  into  her  fold  more  and  more  men  of 
higher  culture,  the  developed  conceptions  of  pagan  philo- 
sophy came  into  contact  with  the  Christian  philosophy. 
Epictetus  the  Stoic,  Marcus  Aurelius  the  Stoic  emperor, 
Plotinus  and  Proclus,  are  not  the  only  names  of  philoso- 
phical note  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  new  era.  Origen 
(185-254),  Athanasius  (296-373),  Teriullian  (160-220), 
and,  above  all,  Augustin  (354-430),  are  not  less  worthy 
of  notice,  for  the  historian  of  philosophy  as  well  as  for  the 
Churchman.  Augustin,  a  man  of  developed  pagan  culture, 
appearing  at  the  timewhen  Christianity  had  gained  the  mastery, 
first  put  forth  those  conceptions,  which  came  to  be  the 
accepted  philosophy  of  the  Christian  Church,  with  a  breadth 
of  thought  hitherto  unrivalled.  He  derived  his  conception* 
of  the  soul  as  real  and  yet  as  opposed  to  matter  from  the 
Platonists.  Metaphysically  he  was  a  Dualist,  and  fixed 
philosophy  from  his  time  onward  as  a  system  of  Dualism. 

In  fact  the  first  generation  of  Christian  converts  had 
hardly  passed  away  before  philosophic  thought  began,  while 
three  or  four  centuries  of  ardent  philosophic  thinking  and 
dialectical  discussion,  carried  on  with  Greek  subtlety  upon 
principles  of  Greek  philosophy,  had  been  needed  before  the 
many-headed  dogma  of  the  Church  had  been  settled  and 
the  function  of  the  Fathers  fulfilled,  there  being  nothing 
more  to  create.  What  one  section  of  Christendom  has 
often  bewailed,  and  another  has  rejoiced  over,  may  be 
accepted  with  some  confidence  for  a  fact,  viz.  that  the 
ecclesiastical  doctrine  was  the  result  of  an  incorporation 
of  a  few  simple  tenets  with  the  wisdom  of  the  world,  or 
at  least  of  the  interpretation  of  a  small  number  of  practical 


v.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  41 

truths  by  the  refined  intelligence  of  thinkers  who  had  been 
trained  in  Greek  schools.  The  fact  belongs  to  the  history 
of  philosophy  as  much  as  to  religion,  although  the  Fathers 
would  for  the  most  part  have  thrown  from  them  the 
imputation,  so  ready  as  they  were  to  denounce  philosophy 
and  all  profane  wisdom  in  the  interest  of  faith. 

Fathers  and  Doctors  of  the  Church. 

But  after  a  while  all  the  main  dogmas  were  formed  by 
which  the  Church  was  henceforth  to  stand,  the  edifice 
being  crowned  in  the  fifth  century  by  Augustin,  last  and 
greatest  of  the  Fathers.  After  him  philosophising  was  bent 
into  other  than  creative  channels.  This  is  what  happened. 
Pagan  philosophy  having  been  reduced  to  silence,  and  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  East  and  West  having  passed  away, 
their  dogmatic  work  accomplished,  when  next,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  consolidated  and  all-powerful  Church,  some- 
thing of  the  old  inquiring  and  reasoning  spirit  appeared,  it 
was  given  the  task  of  interpreting  and  unfolding,  of  sup- 
porting and  upholding,  what  was  there  already.  To  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  succeeded  her  Doctors,  who  in 
monastic  schools  and,  as  time  went  on,  in  universities  made 
philosophy  conform  to  dogma,  expounding  in  logical  form 
and  sustaining  by  rational  argument  the  doctrines  which  no 
one  might  any  more  presume  to  touch  in  their  substance. 
This  was  the  second  phase  or  true  Scholastic  Philosophy. 

The  Dark  Ages. 

The  transition  was  not  swiftly  made.  With  the  final 
triumph  of  the  Church  in  the  Roman  world,  about  a.d.  600, 
when  the  historian  comes  upon  the  time  of  darkness  and 
chaos,  when  the  great  world-empire,  falling    of  itself  into 


42  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

pieces  or  broken  into  fragments  by  the  northern  races,  was 
hewn  into  the  rough  shapes  of  modern  states  and  nation- 
alities, the  Church  held  on  its  way;  but  it  was  no  longer 
the  Church  of  Augustin,  and  not  yet  the  Church  of  Aquinas. 
Only  perhaps  a  single  obscure  name  in  a  century  stands 
out  from  the  time  of  Augustin  to  the  age  of  Charlemagne. 

The  grandiose  attempt  of  the  latter,  at  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century,  to  organise  European  society  on  the  basis  of 
a  twofold  imperium  of  Emperor  and  Pope  gave  room  for 
some  serious  beginnings  to  be  made  of  provision  for  intel- 
lectual culture  in  the  monastic  schools.  Half  a  century  later 
there  appeared  one  of  mark — John  Scotus  Erigena  (800- 
877),  a  native  of  either  Ireland  or  Ayrshire,  where  the 
darkness  had  never  been  so  complete  as  on  the  continent. 
He  struck  the  keynote  of  all  that  followed  in  enunciating 
the  perfect  unity  of  religion  and  philosophy,  of  faith  and' 
reason. 

But  Charlemagne's  construction  could  not  endure,  and 
two  centuries  more  of  confusion  and  anarchy  were  added 
to  the  dismal  roll  before  there  arose  any  prospect  of  an 
intellectual  succession  in  Christendom.  Erigena  was  de- 
nounced as  a  heretic  for  his  pains  ;  hence  we  may  not  place 
the  beginnings  of  Scholasticism  earlier  than  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  century.  Thus  there  was  for  about  five  hundred 
years  next  to  no  philosophy  among  the  European  races; 
during  that  time  philosophic  activity  was  confined  to  Arabians 
in  Bagdad  and  Moors  in  Spain.  They  in  the  time  of  greatest 
darkness  carried  on  disinterested  thinking. 

Effective  Thinking  in  Christendom  confined  to  the  West. 

In  inquiring  into  the  growth  of  Scholasticism,  let  it  first 
be  borne  in  mind,  that  of  the  two  divisions  of  the  Church 


v.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  43 

it  is  practically  only  the  Western  or  Roman  Church  with 
which  we  have  to  do.  The  aim  of  the  Fathers  was  perhaps 
not  less  actively  promoted  in  the  East  than  in  the  West;  the 
development  of  dogma  really  took  place  more  at  Constanti- 
nople and  at  Alexandria  than  at  Rome.  But  at  the  end  of 
the  first  period,  the  great  consolidation  of  doctrine  made  by 
Augustin  for  the  West,  possessed  as  it  was  by  a  force  that 
could  survive  five  centuries,  was  paralleled  by  nothing  of  its 
kind  in  the  East.  And  it  was  for  want  of  this,  as  much  as 
for  any  other  reasons,  that  the  Eastern  Church  in  the  final 
division  of  Christendom,  although  not  assaulted  by  the  storms 
that  for  centuries  beset  the  West,  never  to  the  last  did 
anything  for  enlightenment  to  compare  with  the  remark- 
able if  tardy  achievements  of  the  Western  Schoolmen.  The 
thinkers  of  Constantinople  were  men  of  third  or  fourth  rate 
power.  The  authority  of  Augustin  had  been  the  saving  of 
the  West.  We  consider  therefore  only  the  Western  Church 
with  its  Augustinian  code. 

Philosophic  Instruments  applied  by  the  Schoolmen. 

As  to  the  instruments  of  the  Scholastics  for  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  doctrine  handed  on  to  them,  the  Doctors  had 
some  philosophical  works  of  the  Greeks  which  had  come 
across  the  gulf  of  centuries.  Of  course  they  had,  besides, 
Augustin,  but  his  knowledge  of  Greek  philosophy  was  gained 
at  second  hand  only.  Of  Aristotle  they  had  some  minor 
logical  works  ;  they  possessed  Porphyry's  Introduction  to  the 
Categories  (all  in  the  Latin  translation  of  Boethius),  and  (also 
in  translation)  a  small  piece  of  Plato's  Timczus.  This  was 
all,  excepting  one  or  two  inferior  works  by  commentators. 
Plato's  speculations  were  unknown  save  as  transmitted  by 
Augustin  and  some  of  the  Neo-Platonists.     Even  the  merely 


44  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

logical  doctrines  of  Aristotle  were  incompletely  apprehended 
before  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  while  the  full 
scope  of  his  encyclopaedic  work  remained  unknown  till  the 
thirteenth  century,  when  the  Schoolmen  had  in  a  round- 
about way  obtained  translations  of  his  works.  When  in 
a.d.  529  the  Greek  professors  were  dispersed,  they  fled  to 
Bagdad  and  the  East,  bearing  with  them  the  records  of 
Greek  philosophy — the  original  works  of  Aristotle,  &c. 
There  they  were  in  course  of  time  translated  into  Syriac 
and  thence  into  Arabic.  The  Arabian  conquests  having 
established  the  Mohammedan  empire  from  the  East  across 
North  Africa  into  Spain,  Greek  learning  found  its  way 
thither  in  Arabic,  and  was  there  again  translated  by 
Jews  into  Hebrew  and  borne  back  into  Christendom. 
Then  both  from  Arabic  and  from  Hebrew  Latin  transla-, 
tions  were  finally  made,  and  these  were  received  by  the 
Schoolmen  as  a  kind  of  revelation.  But  this  did"  not  take 
place  till  the  twelfth  century.  As  it  took  place,  as  they 
became  acquainted  with  Greek  philosophy,  their  view 
perceptibly  widened.  And  by  the  time  the  Schoolmen 
had  learnt  their  Aristotle  as  fully  as  might  be  in  this  in- 
direct way,  i.  e.  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
this  knowledge  began  to  be  supplemented  by  acquain- 
tance with  the  original  Greek,  or  by  direct  translations 
from  the  same,  the  originals  being  sent  or  brought  by  the 
Greeks  of  Constantinople. 

Limitations  of  Scholasticism. 

Scholasticism  was  philosophising  in  support  of  a  limited 
and  foregone  conclusion.  This  is  the  difference  between  it 
and  the  free  movement  of  Hellenic  thought.  But  still  it  was 
philosophising.     The  Doctors  did  make  a  step  towards  the 


v.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  45 

light,  in  working  from  blind  devotion  to  more  or  less 
rational  belief.  We  can  thus  distinguish  between  their  great- 
ness and  their  limitations.  If  we  dwell  on  the  latter,  the 
case  against  them  can  be  strongly  put  and  maintained.  It 
is  easy  to  abuse  Scholasticism.  No  new  or  striking  con- 
ception, like  those  we  find  in  ancient  or  in  modern  philo- 
sophy, penetrating  to  the  heart  of  things,  sprang  from  any 
one  of  the  Schoolmen.  From  want  of  ability  or  lack  of 
liberty  they  never  carried  thought  farther  than  the  Greek 
leaders,  and  for  the  most  part  not  so  far.  Their  utter 
dependence  upon  Aristotle  appears  in  that,  as  their  know- 
ledge of  him  widened,  their  views  of  philosophy  widened 
and  they  became  able  to  conceive  the  full  scope  of  philo- 
sophic inquiry.  Till  the  thirteenth  century  they  had  no 
conception  of  philosophy  but  as  a  vague  science  of  dialectic 
or  logic,  nor  had  they  made  any  division  of  its  departments 
as  Aristotle  had  done.  And  at  the  last  they  incurred 
discredit  through  comparison  with  the  Greek  philosophy, 
when  the  fall  of  Constantinople  revealed  this  in  the  original 
form  more  fully  to  the  West.  They  were  found  to  have 
established  no  alternative  claim  to  modern  respect  by  taking 
up  any  branch  of  thought  which  the  Greeks  had  neglected, 
or  in  which  they  had  failed.  And  their  very  acuteness, 
through  being  turned  on  to  a  fatally  narrow  circle  of 
subjects,  had  led  to  subtleties  that  were  doomed  to  be  the 
occasion  of  some  of  the  bitterest  reproaches  since  heaped 
upon  them. 

The  Case  for  Scholasticism. 

On  the  other  side  it  should  be  noted  that  the  Schoolmen 
were  not  responsible  for  their  circumstances,  determined 
by  a  great  and   uncontrollable  course  of  events.     It  was 


46  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

something  that,  after  so  great  a  dissolution,  there  should 
have  been  so  considerable  an  attempt  at  reconstruction. 
It  was  not  a  little  wonderful  that  they  should  have  applied 
all  the  enlightenment  handed  down  to  them  to  rationalise 
faith,  and  that  they  struggled  as  they  did  against  the  con- 
servatism of  ecclesiastical  authority  until  official  recognition 
of  one  newly  rationalised  doctrine  after  another  was  extorted. 
Theirs  became  entitled  Church  philosophy,  yet  the  Church 
did  nothing  but  accept,  did  nothing  to  encourage,  their 
philosophising,  witness  the  case  of  Scotus  Erigena.  Often 
and  often  was  Aristotle  solemnly  banned  before  he  came 
to  be  considered  (in  the  thirteenth  century)  as  'the  fore- 
runner of  Christ  in  the  things  of  Nature  as  John  Baptist 
was  in  the  things  of  Grace.'  No,  we  must  not  speak 
only  of  the  servility  of  the  Schoolmen :  they  showed  not 
only  wisdom  but  also  courage  in  their  appeal  to  heathen 
Aristotle.  And  it  is  more  becoming  at  this  time  of  day,  and 
more  important  besides,  that  their  wisdom  and  their  courage 
should  not  remain  unacknowledged. 


For  Lecture  VI  : — 
The  student  should  not  fail  to  follow  up  the  lecture  by  reading 
Croom  Robertson's  account  of  British  Schoolmen  in  the  essay,  '  The 
English  Mind,'  Philosophical  Remains,  pp.  34-38. — Ed. 


LECTURE  VI. 

SCHOLASTICISM    AND    THE    RISE    OF    MODERN    SCIENCE    AND 
PHILOSOPHY. 

Realism  in  Scholasticism. 

Into  the  question  which  chiefly  occupied  the  Schoolmen 
in  their  attempt  to  interpret  and  rationalise  Christian  dogma 
in  the  light  of  Greek  philosophy — the  question  of  the  nature 
of  '  Universals '  or  General  Ideas — we  shall  enter  more 
fully  in  a  separate  lecture.  It  was  not  new  then  any 
more  than  it  is  obsolete  now.  Before  Plato  and  Aristotle 
the  Greeks  had  seen  its  significance ;  with  those  two  it  was 
a  matter  of  the  deepest  concern.  Plato,  with  his  archetypal 
ideas  as  the  only  Realities,  is  the  great  representative  of 
the  one  extreme  view  to  which  the  Schoolmen  first  gave 
the  name  of  Realism.  Aristotle  held  a  modified  Realism. 
The  other  extreme  view,  viz.  that  only  particulars  are 
realities,  the  universal  being  but  subjective,  also  had  its 
representatives  in  Greek  thought,  Epicurus,  e.g.  approximating 
to  a  modern  Nominalist,  although  on  different  grounds. 
Of  how  the  question  had  been  discussed  by  the  Greeks 
the  Schoolmen  knew  nothing.  Nevertheless,  Porphyry 
and  the  fragments  in  their  hands  were  enough  to  suggest 
the  problem,  and  in  fact  Erigena  in  the  ninth  century,  in  the 
iervour  of  his  Neo-Platonism,  had  raised  it,  and  come  to 
a  conclusion  in  the  spirit  of  a  thorough  Realist.  Moreover, 
as  soon  as  the  philosophic  interest  was  aroused  within  the 


48  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Church,  the  Schoolmen  were  quick  to  see  the  full  bearing 
of  the  issues.  Their  philosophy  consisting  in  the  intellectual 
consideration  of  the  mystery  of  the  faith,  they  discerned 
at  the  foundation  of  how  many  articles  of  that  faith  the 
problem  lay — the  Trinity,  the  Real  Presence,  the  Redemption 
of  the  race,  the  status  of  the  Church  as  the  divinely  illumined 
witness  of  the  Truth.  In  these  and  other  beliefs  they  saw 
how  the  relation  of  the  Many  to  the  One,  the  old  question 
of  Parmenides  and  Heracleitus,  identical  with  the  later 
question  as  to  Universals,  is  implicated. 

Now  whichever  view  the  Schoolmen  took,  they  made  an 
advance  in  taking  any  view  at  all,  and  the  view  held  by 
some  from  the  first,  and  by  the  majority  at  the  last,  showed 
more  intellect  and  betokened  more  independence  than  is 
ordinarily  ascribed  to  them.  Its  promulgation  heralded  the 
approach  of  modern  thought. 

Divisions  of  the  Scholastic  Period. 

The  whole  period  falls  into  three  parts : — 

Part  I.  From  the  eleventh  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century. 

Part  II.  covers  the  thirteenth  century. 

Part  III.  From  the  fourteenth  century  till  whenever 
Scholasticism  may  be  supposed  to  end ;  that  is,  one  might 
say,  with  the  sixteenth  century  for  the  active  and  leading 
spirits  in  Europe,  with  the  seventeenth  for  the  universities 
in  the  advanced  countries,  but  not  even  to  the  present 
day  in  the  seminaries  of  the  Catholic  Church,  where  Aquinas 
is  still  the  great  philosophical  authority. 

The  first  period  is  the  Platonic  age  of  Scholasticism. 
Aristotle,  as  we  have  seen,  was  at  this  date  known  chiefly 
through  the  medium  of  the  Arabian  scholars,  while  Plato  was 
known  directly  by  a  fragment  only,  but  indirectly  through 


vi.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  49 

Neo-Platonic  media  and  Augustin's  works.  But  a  Realism 
as  strong  as  Plato's  was  supported  by  Anselm  (1033-1109) 
and  others,  and  this  view  was  tolerated  or  approved  and 
accepted  by  the  Church.  Reason  and  faith  were  in  process 
of  coming  together,  but  it  was  an  innovation.  Scholasticism 
was  struggling  to  gain  its  footing.  Roscellin  (fl.  1092),  on 
the  other  hand,  dared  to  avow  an  extreme  Nominalism  and 
drove  it  to  an  extravagant  conclusion. 

The  second  period  is  the  Aristotelian  age  of  Scholasticism, 
when  Aristotle,  better  known  at  length  in  Latin,  though  not 
in  Greek,  came  to  have  more  influence  over  the  human  mind 
than  at  any  previous  period  in  history.  Way  had  been  made 
for  this  evolution  by  Abelard  (1079-1142),  that  restless, 
critical,  but  not  constructive  spirit,  antagonistic  to  Anselm. 
Independent  and  unchecked  by  rules,  he  is  the  first  and 
best  representative  of  freedom  of  thought  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  A  multitude  of  other  circumstances  concurred  to 
induce  the  change  of  attitude.  The  beginnings  of  Scholas- 
ticism coincide  with  the  beginnings  of  the  Papal  supre- 
macy in  Europe — the  period  from  Hildebrand  to  Innocent 
III — and  the  maturity  of  Scholasticism  was  attained  when 
the  Papacy  was  putting  forth  its  strongest  claims  against 
the  civil  power — in  the  days,  i.e.  of  Innocent  III  (1198- 
12 16) — and  when  the  Church  was  endeavouring  as  far  as 
possible  to  widen  the  organised  ecclesiastical  teaching.  Now 
the  encyclopaedic  genius  of  Aristotle  was  exactly  fitted 
to  satisfy  the  largest  requirements  on  these  lines,  and  hence 
Scholasticism,  with  its  ground-principle  of  reason  in  the 
service  of  faith,  flourished  at  length  under  Aristotelian 
influence. 

In  Thomas  Aquinas  (1225-1274)  the  junction  was  com- 
pleted.    He  retained  all  of  Plato  that  he  needed  for  dogma 

E 


50  Elements  of  General  Philosophy       [Lect. 

where  Aristotle  fell  short.  But  now  reason,  unlike  the  first 
period  when  she  was  struggling  to  enter,  not  only  had 
entered  into  the  penetralia  of  faith,  but  was  fully  recognised, 
on  the  condition  of  yielding  aid  and  reverence  to  the  Church, 
as  the  legitimate  occupant  of  the  realm  of  nature.  The 
interest  in  the  natural  world  felt  by  Roger  Bacon  was 
undoubtedly  due  to  Aristotle's  observation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena. The  watchword  of  the  thought  of  the  day  was 
the  Reasonableness  of  the  Faith,  and  this,  Aquinas  maintained, 
was  perfectly  intelligible  even  to  the  smallest  particular. 
But  hardly  had  the  generation  of  Aquinas  passed  away 
than  this  union  was  seen  to  be  hollow. 

The  third  period  is  one  of  rupture  and  divorce  between 
reason  and  faith.  It  is  very  curious  to  note  how  from  the 
two  sides  equally  the  fatal  change  of  attitude  was  effected. 
John  Duns  Scotus  (1274- 1308),  who  had  refined  and  dis- 
tinguished beyond  all  human  belief  to  the  extent  of  twelve 
folio  volumes  before  he  died  at  the  age  of  34,  was  an 
ardent  devoted  son  of  the  Church,  but  he  aimed  the  first 
blow  at  Scholasticism  by  disturbing  the  concordat  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  He  denied  that  Aquinas  had  demon- 
strated the  reasonableness  of  the  faith.  Christian  doctrine 
transcended  reason  and  had  to  be  believed.  Another  Briton, 
William  of  Ockham,  took  two  strides  backward  (or  forward) 
for  one  of  Scotus,  in  reviving  the  Nominalism  of  Roscellin, 
and  declaring,  like  him,  that  the  rational  expression  of  the 
leading  Christian  dogmas  was  impossible.  That  Roscellin 
should  have  beforehand  by  implication  proclaimed  the  nullity 
of  the  Scholastic  attempt  was  as  little  grateful  to  the  Church 
as  to  Anselm,  and  accordingly  Roscellin,  who  had  even 
exceeded  the  intellectual  licence  of  Abelard,  was  condemned 
and  his  doctrine  banned  for  two  centuries.     But  the  times 


vi.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  51 

had  changed,  and  Ockham,  milder  than  Roscellin,  could 
better  gain  access  to  men's  minds.  Professing  implicit 
belief  in  all  the  articles  of  the  faith,  he  proceeded  to  show, 
as  Kant  did  later,  how  impotent  was  Reason  to  establish 
any  one  of  them.  Highly  gifted,  possessing  great  force  of 
character,  and  a  Franciscan,  Ockham  gave  the  Church  little 
cause  to  love  him,  and  his  doctrines  did  not  at  once  find 
favour.  Nevertheless  the  times  were  ready  for  it,  and  the 
Church  had  gradually  to  bring  herself  to  support  those  who 
declared  that  the  faith  could  not  be  explained  because  it 
was  too  high. 

But  this  theory  was  adopted  by  independent  thinkers  as 
giving,  in  the  mere  shadow  of  restraint  it  imposed,  a  chance 
to  get  virtually  free ;  and  the  Church  and  the  world,  having 
agreed  to  differ,  went  farther  and  farther  asunder  till  they 
turned  their  backs  on  each  other.  The  Church  might  go 
on  believing  and  exacting  what  belief  it  could ;  but  while 
far  from  indisposed  to  believe,  men  insisted  that  they  would 
also  freely  inquire.  The  influence  of  the  Church  was 
extinguished  in  different  degrees  at  different  places.  Events 
had  happened  which  would  have  broken  Scholasticism  even 
had  it  been  less  shaken  from  within.  Human  vision  and 
human  power  were  being  extended  on  all  sides,  in  every 
sphere  of  human  interest.  The  East  had  become  known 
through  the  crusades,  and  now  explorers  had  un veiled 
a  world  and  an  ancient  civilisation  in  the  far  West.  The 
reign  of  darkness,  dimly  lit  hitherto  by  a  circumscribed 
stock  of  ideas,  once  broken,  many  of  those  ideas  had  to  be 
changed  or  surrendered.  Most  revolutionising  of  all  were  the 
results  of  Copernicus's  flash  of  thought.  The  earth  was  not 
fixed  and  flat,  nor  the  centre  of  things,  but  only  a  revolving 
satellite,  one  of  many  specks  in  the  starry  sky,  and  away 


52  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

on  every  side,  down  as  well  as  up,  space  ran  out  into 
the  illimitable.  Europe  was  dwarfed  in  the  world;  the 
world  was  dwarfed  in  the  universe.  The  heavens  existed 
for  other  beings  than  the  human  race.  The  right  of  private 
judgment  was  claimed  for  every  separate  individuality  till,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Europe  was  rent  in 
twain.  The  revival  of  letters  dates  from  the  fall  of  Constan- 
tinople in  1453,  when  Greek  scholars  were  driven  West. 
The  next  150  years  witnessed  a  great  revulsion.  When 
through  those  refugees  the  true  Plato  became  known,  there 
was  a  wild  wave  of  Platonic  revival.  Then  attempts  were 
made  to  understand  the  true  Aristotle,  but  generally  he  was 
decried  as  the  instrument  of  the  Scholastics  and,  in  the 
heat  of  reaction,  reviled  for  the  artificial  supremacy  to 
which  they  had  exalted  him.  Every  Greek  school  had  its, 
adherents  who  fancied  they  had  lit  upon  ideas  that  were  all 
the  emancipated  world  could  want.  Most  remarkable  of  all 
were  the  premature  attempts  at  constructive  philosophy  by  the 
Italian  Nature-philosophers,  of  whom  Telesius  was  perhaps 
the  most  earnest  and  Giordano  Bruno  the  best  known  and 
most  imposing.  These  were  endeavours,  on  a  purely 
secular  basis  of  objective  consideration,  to  bring  into  order 
and  explain  the  universe  in  its  new  vastness.  Bruno  was 
burnt  at  Rome  in  1600.  Four  years  previous  had  seen  the 
birth  of  Descartes. 

Period  of  Transition. 

The  Church  philosophy,  while  it  ceased  to  advance  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  lingered  on  until  the  modern  movement 
in  philosophy  took  definite  shape.  After  the  fourteenth 
century  the  best  minds  were  no  longer  content  to  be  church- 
philosophers,  even  if  they  were  friendly  to  the  established 


vi.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  53 

religion.  A  time  of  intellectual  transition  supervened,  coin- 
ciding with  the  Renaissance,  Renascence,  or  Revival  of 
Letters.  But  the  movement  was  very  gradual.  Many  among 
the  Schoolmen  had  been  preparing  the  way  for  the  Renais- 
sance. This  transition  may  be  considered  as  having  lasted 
from  1450  till  1600.  It  was  a  time  of  great  intellectual 
activity,  chiefly  of  a  destructive  and  disintegrating  nature, 
although  there  were  many  bold  constructive  attempts.  These, 
however,  were  only  in  revival  of  past  points  of  view.  The 
destroyers,  in  this  epoch  of  fermentation,  left  little  of  per- 
manent value. 

The  Modern  Period. 

With  1600  begins  the  modern  period,  properly  speaking. 
Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  continuous  intellectual  flow 
till  now,  and  there  is  reason  to  expect  it  may  continue. 
The  movement  has  not  only  been  rich  in  event,  it  has  been 
European  to  an  extent  to  which  the  Church  philosophy 
was  not,  much  less  the  Greek.  The  great  Scholastic  thinkers, 
it  is  true,  were  of  different  nationalities,  chiefly  Italian, 
French,  and  British,  and  of  these  more  especially  British. 
The  greatest  of  all,  Aquinas,  was  an  Italian,  but  nearly 
all  the  great  steps  were  taken  by  men  of  these  islands. 
But  whatever  nationality  they  belonged  to,  they  abjured  it 
and  became  Churchmen.  It  is  only  below  the  surface  that  we 
discern  the  national  characteristics.  In  the  modern  period, 
on  the  other  hand,  not  only  do  all  the  cultured  races  of 
Europe  take  part,  but  the  national  differences,  especially 
in  the  British  contributors,  are  far  more  marked.  There 
is  consequently  far  greater  complexity.  And  whatever  else 
the  period  has  included,  there  has  been  a  continuous  British 
philosophy. 


54  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

The  Modern  Scientific  Movement. 

Side  by  side  with  modern  philosophy  there  has  been,  to 
a  degree  unparalleled  before,  a  properly  scientific  movement. 
There  is  but  one  name  to  represent  positive  science  in 
the  preceding  period — the  name  of  the  Franciscan  monk, 
Roger  Bacon  (12 14-1294).  He  alone,  while  the  Scholastic 
mind  was  turned  away  from  nature  and  wholly  occupied 
with  general  philosophy,  was  profoundly  interested  in  the 
investigation  of  natural  phenomena.  For  his  pains  he  was 
imprisoned  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Like  Archimedes,  he 
stands  without  known  forerunners  or  successors.  It  was 
not  till  Galileo  arose  that  physical  science  entered  on  its 
modern  course. 

It  is  in  the  modern  period  that  the  work  of  special 
scientific  inquiry  begins,  with  ever-increasing  subdivision. 
Some  of  the  leading  modern  philosophers  rank  among  the 
scientific  discoverers,  e.g.,  Descartes  and  Leibniz  ;  but  modern 
science  commenced  its  career  before  modern  philosophy. 
Galileo  figures  in  the  first  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century 
(1564-1642).  Following  him  there  was  a  continual  scientific 
advance.  He  was  mainly  occupied  with  physics ;  Harvey, 
(157 8- 1657)  with  physiology.  Pascal  (162 3- 166 2)  devoted 
himself  to  physics  and  mathematics  as  well  as  to  philosophy. 
Boyle  (1627-1691)  is  the  type  of  the  modern  scientific  man, 
of  no  speculative  power,  content  with  eliciting  positive  results 
without  troubling  himself  about  their  relations  to  other 
results.  Newton  (1642-1727)  is  the  supreme  representative 
of  special  scientific  inquiry,  though  of  so  wide  a  range  that 
he  is  quite  above  the  common  rank  of  inquirers.  He  laid 
out  what  has  been  accepted  as  the  true  physical  system  of 
the  universe,  but    becomes   confused    (in  comparison,  e.g. 


vl]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  55 

with  Locke)  when  dealing  with  its  speculative  aspect.  After 
Newton  science  branched  out  and  developed  gradually  into 
its  present  high  specialisation.  At  the  present  time  a  man 
must  specialise  or  do  nothing.  But  it  was  Copernicus  (1473— 
1543)  who,  in  setting  the  minds  of  men  at  the  proper  point 
of  view  for  contemplating  the  universe,  prepared  the  way  for 
Galileo  and  for  Newton,  and  enabled  those  that  came  after  to 
engage  in  their  special  inquiries. 

By  the  philosophic  movement,  as  distinct  from  the  scientific, 
we  mean  the  thinking  of  men  who  put  themselves  essentially 
at  the  subjective  point  of  view.  They  do  not  exclude  the 
practice  of,  or  the  having  regard  to,  a  scientific  investigation 
of  nature,  but  they  aim  at  bringing  together  the  results 
obtained  in  science,  and  hold  that  the  study  of  things  must 
be  supplemented  by  a  study  of  thoughts,  the  study  of  nature 
by  a  study  of  things  in  relation  to  man. 


'       LECTURE    VII. 

MODERN   PHILOSOPHY. 

Divisions. 

The  whole  movement  of  Modern  Philosophy  has  been 
described  as  an  attempt  to  come  at  a  knowledge  of  things 
from  a  consideration  of  the  conditions  and  powers  of  human 
reason.  It  starts  from  the  subjective  point  of  view,  from, 
that  of  the  knowing  mind.  Herein  it  is  distinguished  from 
ancient  philosophy,  which  took  an  objective  point  of  view, 
as  well  as  from  Scholasticism,  which  was  fettered  by  a  system 
of  belief  held  to  be  revealed. 

Within  this  movement  we  meet  early  with  an  opposition 
in  thought  that  admits  of  greatly  varied  expression.  The 
German  classifications,  e.  g.  Schwegler's  and  others,  are 
somewhat  unsatisfactory.  Schwegler,  Kuno  Fischer,  and 
most  of  the  German  historians,  divide  all  schools  into  Realists 
and  Idealists — those  who  explain  thoughts  from  things,  and 
those  who  explain  things  from  thoughts.  But  this  is  a  bad 
use  of  ambiguous,  much  abused  terms.  Realist,  e.  g.  has 
been  used  both  in  the  question  of  the  perception  of  an 
external  world  and  also  in  that  of  the  reality  of  '  universals.' 
It  was  proposed  by  Kant  to  use  the  term  Metaphysical  Dog- 
matists or  Dogmatic  Metaphysicians,  and  the  usage  has 
become  common  in   Germany ;    but   this   does  not   apply 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  57 

farther  than  Wolff.  Kant,  coming  after  Wolff,  it  is  often 
sail,  inaugurated  a  period  of  Critical  Philosophy,  appearing 
as  a  critical  thinker  in  relation  to  two  movements  pre- 
ceding him — Metaphysical  Dogmatism  and  Empiricism, 
the  latter,  he  found,  having  been  carried  by  Hume  into 
Scepticism.  Were  we  at  the  Kantian  point  of  view  this 
division  of  modern  thought  might  do;  as  it  is,  we  must 
find  a  place  for  such  as  Kant. 

Descartes  and  Bacon. 

Modern  philosophy,  as  distinct  from  the  pursuit  of  modern 
science,  begins  as  late  as  the  second  generation  of  the 
seventeenth  century  with  Descartes,  and  not  before.  It  is  in 
relation  to  him  that  we  have  to  understand  all  who  follow. 
Bacon,  who  flourished  a  generation  earlier  than  Descartes, 
has  more  relation  to  the  scientific  than  to  the  philosophic* 
movement,  and  had  no  intellectual  succession  till  long  after 
Descartes.  Hobbes  caught  none  of  Bacon's  enthusiasm 
for  laborious  inductive  research  (though  he  came  into  per- 
sonal contact  with  him),  and  showed  only  a  very  general 
agreement  with  him  as  to  the  ultimate  springs  of  human 
knowledge  in  sense.  Bacon's  system  fructified  later  on, 
mainly  in  physical  science.  Whatever  philosophy  there  was 
in  England  in  the  mi  d'e  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  rot 
truly  Baconian.  Modern  Empirical  Philosophy,  or  Empiri- 
cism, took  its  proper  beginning  in  Locke's  Essay  concerning 
Human  Understanding  (1690) — a  work  which  was  partly 
Baconian  and  regarded  experience  as  the  key  of  knowledge. 
All  the  other  leaders  in  the  modern  movement  grow  out 
from  Descartes  in  a  continuous  philosophic  line.  Never- 
theless, though  in  Bacon  the  strictly  philosophical  ideas  and 
results  are   a   small   part   of  his    writings   compared  with 


58  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Descartes',  he  is  without  question  to  be  numbered  among 
(mental)  philosophers.  To  proclaim  that  the  human  mind 
must  begin,  in  everything,  with  simple  particular  experiences, 
and  that  all  other  knowledge  is  pretence  or  error,  is  a  philo- 
sophical idea.  The  study  of  nature  on  Baconian  principles 
may  be  only  positive  physical  science,  but  in  him  it  was 
philosophy  to  call  men  back  from  a  vain  manipulation  of 
words  and  abstractions  to  the  methodic  observation  and 
interpretation  of  the  real  phenomena  of  nature.  Moreover, 
Bacon's  idea  has  its  application  to  mind  as  well  as  nature, 
and  therein  leads  and  has  led  to  philosophical  results  of 
a  sufficiently  far-reaching  cast. 

Rationalism  and  Experientialism, 

There  are  thus  two  main  lines  to  be  distinguished — those 
\ho  say  that  knowledge  is  explicable  from  reason1,  and 
those  who  hold  it  is  explicable  from  experience — and  these 
hold  good  up  to  Kant,  when  we  begin  to  get  approximations 
from  one  line  to  another:  Kant,  e.g.  approximates  to  the 
Experientialists  from  the  Rationalist  side  ;  nor  is  Reid  a  pure 
Experientialist.  We  cannot  label  the  varieties  of  human 
thought  as  exclusively  of  one  kind  or  the  other.  Descartes 
undoubtedly  heads  the  former,  and  Bacon  may  be  allowed 
to  head  the  latter,  but  nowhere  must  we  strain  the  con- 
nexions. We  must  look  only  for  general  similarity  in  habits 
of  thought.  All  schools  allow  the  distinction  between  reason 
and  experience  as  being,  either  or  both,  the  ultimate  con- 
stituents of  human  knowledge,  but  in  modern  times  thinkers 

1  The  student  must  distinguish  between  the  narrower  peculiarly 
German  connotation  of  Rationalism  used  here,  and  its  wider  meaning, 
common  in  this  country,  of  the  revolt  of  individual  reason  or  judgment 
against  authority  in  all  ultimate  questions.     Ed. 


VII.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  59 

differ  in  the  prominence  they  assign  to  one  or  the  other. 
English  philosophers  have  always  put  forward  experience 
as  that  in  which  to  seek  an  explanation  of  knowledge. 
Thinkers  of  other  countries,  have,  on  the  whole,  been  dis- 
posed to  give  pre-eminence  to  reason  ;  but  Rationalists  differ 
much  in  the  relative  weight  they  allow  to  experience  as 
an  additional  factor  to  reason,  just  as  Experientialists  differ 
with  respect  to  reason  as  an  additional  factor  to  experience. 
Let  us  survey  both  lines  of  thought. 

Rationalists. 

Descartes  began,  both  in  matter  and  method,  a  distinct 
movement  during  two  generations.  This  was  carried  on 
by  his  (the  Cartesian)  school — Geulincx,  Arnauld,  Male- 
branche,  and  especially  Spinoza.  Geulincx,  Arnauld  and 
Malebranche  sought  to  be  thorough-going  Cartesians. 
Spinoza,  while  following  Descartes,  had,  besides,  distinctly 
independent  views  ;  the  most  characteristic  aspect  of  him 
came  from  the  Jewish  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Before  and  after  Spinoza's  death  Leibniz,  though  bitterly 
opposed  to  the  former  and  appealing  from  Descartes  back  to 
the  Schoolmen,  kept  up  modern  metaphysical  Rationalism 
or  a  priori  speculation  for  yet  another  generation.  Like 
Spinoza,  he  was  a  markedly  original  thinker,  although  he 
thought  with  reference  to  the  results  of  Descartes  and 
Spinoza.  He  was  followed  by  Wolff,  who,  of  less  impor- 
tance, joins  Kant  to  Leibniz,  of  whom  he  is  a  disciple. 
Wolff  had  hardly  completed  his  encyclopaedic  labour  of 
putting  form  and  system  into  Leibniz's  disjointed  labours 
when  Kant  began  his  academical  career  in  a  state  of 
'dogmatic  slumber,'  from  which  it  needed  the  scepticism 
of  Hume  to  wake  him.     Kant  called  these,  his  predecessors, 


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vii.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  61 

'  dogmatic  '  in  opposition  to  himself  as  critical,  and  to  the 
sceptical  philosophy  of  Hume.  They  are  also  called  Sub- 
stantialists  because  each  starts  with  a  conception  of  substance, 
the  variations  in  which  constitute  the  chief  differences  between 
them. 

The  Rationalist  Succession. 

Without  derogating  from  individual  thinkers,  we  may  say 

that  the   three   great   Rationalists,   Descartes,  Spinoza  and 

Leibniz,  form   stages  of  one  movement  in  the  progressive 

development  of  philosophy  in  an  orderly  sequence  of  thought, 

although  Spinoza  protested  against  Descartes,  and  Leibniz 

protested  against  both.     Spinoza  takes  up  the  problems  that 

Descartes   had   left,   and    solves   them   to   all    intents    and 

purposes  in  Cartesian  terms,  as  he  would  not  have  done 

unless    Descartes'    results    and    methods    had    been    there. 

Leibniz  also  takes  those  results,  and  from  them  tries  to  get 

to  others,  arriving  however  at  such  as  require  him  to  make 

a  fresh  start  from  a  different  position.     And  although  he 

began  to  arrive  at  his  results  without   Spinoza,  they  were 

emphasised  and  worked   out   in  conscious   antagonism   to 

Spinoza. 

Cartesianism. 

Now  Descartes  gave  to  modern  philosophy  its  subjective 
character.  Seeking  some  immediate,  irrefutable  certainty  as 
a  starting-point  or  fulcrum  for  all  knowledge,  he  put  aside 
the  testimony  of  authority,  of  tradition,  of  opinion,  of  the 
sphere  of  sense,  saying  of  these  dubitandum  est  de  omnibus. 
He  only  found  standing  ground  in  his  own  reflective  self- 
consciousness.  Cogito  ergo  sum,  or  rather  dubiio  ergo  sum, 
for  it  was  in  the  fact  of  his  thought  as  doubting  that  he  found 
the  immediate  certainty  he  sought.  But  he  soon  abandoned 
this   epistemological  position   for  one  of  dogmatism — Ego 


62  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

sum  res  cogitans — and  then  for  the  dogmatic  Dualism  of  '  I  am 
a  thinking  substance,  thinking  of  a  substance  that  does  not 
think!  Thus  he  assumed  both  mind  and  matter,  the  key- 
note of  dogmatic  metaphysic  being  that  whatever  we  clearly 
and  distinctly  conceive  is,  or  represents,  Reality — that  thought 
is  the  measure  of  Reality.  And  the  truth  of  this  dual 
assumption  was  guaranteed  for  him,  he  held,  by  the  existence 
of  a  perfect  and  veracious  Deity. 

The  Development  of  Cartesianism, 

Now  this  dualism  of  Descartes  is  really  double,  being  a 
dualism  as  between  God  and  the  world,  and  also  as  between 
mind  and  body.  And  the  problem  of  the  co-existence 
of  substances  in  either  case  was  carried  on  by  Spinoza  and 
the  Occasionalists,  Malebranche,  Geulincx  and  Arnauld.  ' 
The  latter  concluded  that  the  apparent  interaction  between 
mind  and  body  was  illusory,  the  actions  of  the  mind  being 
only  so  many  occasions  for  the  interveniion  of  divine  power 
resulting  in  the  corresponding  bodily  action.  But  the 
creature  was  not  only  robbed  of  the  power  of  initiating 
action,  he  was  also  deprived  of  the  ability  to  know.  Know- 
ledge, according  to  Malebranche,  takes  place  by  ■  the  vision 
of  all  things  in  God,'  i.  e.  it  is  not  we  but  God  that  knows 
through  us. 

Here  we  have  the  consistent  development  of  what  was 
implicit  in  Descartes.     It  is  the  '  death  of  philosophy.' 

Spinoza's  central  conception  was  that  of  substance.  He 
started  with  it,  whereas  Descartes  worked  up  to  it.  But 
he  could  not  allow  more  than  one  substance,  all  process  and 
all  change  in  the  universe  being  necessarily  determined  by  the 
nature  of  that  one.  •  Besides  God,'  he  wrote,  'no  sutstance 
can  be  given  or  conceived.' 


vil]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy,.  63 

Critical  Philosophy. 

Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  raised  the  question  as  to  whether 
we  can  know  substance  at  all,  substance  being  a  notion 
which,  while  it  underlies  experience,  is  not  given  in  expe- 
rience. He  critically  examined  reason  and  not  experience, 
yet  he  approaches  nearer  to  Experientialism  than  the  other 
Rationalists. 

Kant's  movement  of  thought  has  had  a  profound  influence 
over  all  Europe.  So  much  has  grown  from  his  philosophy 
that  we  cannot  here  deal  with  it.  Many  thinkers  have  been 
his  disciples,  but  the  great  movement  in  German  philosophy 
of  Schelling,  Fichte  and  Hegel  was  as  relatively  independent 
as  the  departures  of  Spinoza  and  Leibniz  with  reference  to 
Descartes.  They  philosophise  with  reference  to  Kant's  critical 
inquiry,  but  are  not  themselves  Kanlians. 

Common  Sense  Philosophy. 

The  Scottish  school  of  '  Common  Sense '  philosophy  of 
Reid  and  his  followers  was  first  of  all  a  protest  against  the 
offensive,  negative  conclusions  of  Hume,  but  consisted  in 
a  partial  departure  only  from  Locke,  for  it  sheltered  itself 
under  Bacon  as  the  defender  of  Experience.  Reid  sought 
to  make  out  that,  in  addition  to  the  senses,  there  are 
principles  of  a  common  '  sense '  inherent  in  the  human  mind 
from  the  beginning  and  transcending  experience.  Dugald 
Stewart  followed  Reid,  not  contributing  much  original  matter, 
and  was  followed  by  Hamilton,  who,  although  he  glories 
in  being  a  disciple  of  Reid,  was  influenced  in  his  thought  by 
Kant.  Without  being  a  thorough  Kantian  or  well  trained 
in  Kantian  philosophy,  he  became  through  his  Kantian 
studies  heir  to  a  larger  insight  than  Reid  possessed. 


64  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

The  Experientialists. 

There  is  nothing  on  the  Experientialist  side  like  the  definite 
succession  there  is  upon  the  side  of  the  Rationalists,  although 
the  books  are  apt  to  declare  the  reverse.  Bacon  was  not 
carried  on  by  Hobbes,  nor  Hobbes  by  Locke.  Each  went 
on  his  own  way  after  his  own  manner.  They  all  start  from 
a  consideration  of  Sense,  but  do  not  constitute  definite 
milestones  upon  a  certain  track.  All  are  more  or  less 
Nominalist.  Bacon  preached  with  unsurpassed  fervour  the 
necessity  of  turning  to  external  nature,  and  it  is  mainly 
scientific  men  who  have  felt  his  influence.  His  general 
position  (v.  p.  58)  is  that  knowledge  begins  with  particular 
experience — that  general  knowledge  must  be  got  from 
particulars  and  tested  by  experience.  But  he  can  scarcely 
iank  as  the  father  of  Experiential  philosophy.  Hobbes's 
philosophy,  again,  was  markedly  provocative  to  succeeding 
thinkers,  but  exercised  no  regular,  systematic  influence 
such  as  we  find  on  the  other  side.  But  when  we  come  to 
Locke,  we  encounter  a  philosophic  initiator  who  may  be 
called  so  in  the  same  sense  as  Descartes.  He  began 
a  new  movement  which  amounted  to  a  definite  system 
of  Experientialism.  He  set  himself  to  prove  the  problem 
of  human  knowledge,  and  his  watchword  is  Experience 
as  much  as  Descartes'  was  Reason.  It  was  the  latter  who 
set  him  thinking,  although  it  was  the  latter  he  opposed. 
Leibniz's  Nouveaux  Essais  were  written  against  the  Essay 
concerning  Human  Understanding.  Locke  stirred  up  Leibniz 
to  investigate  the  origin  of  knowledge  from  a  different  stand- 
point from  that  taken  in  the  essay. 

Locke's  essay  was  present  to  the  mind  of  Berkeley,  who 
took  up  human  knowledge  in  the  spirit  of  an  Experientialist. 
Later  on  he  came  to  be  occupied  with  the  question  of  our 


vii.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  65 

knowledge  of  matter,  and  solved  it  in  general  correspondence 
with  the  principles  of  Locke's  philosophy,  yet  without  being 
more  of  a  Lockian  than  Spinoza  and  Leibniz  were  Cartesians. 
He  took  up  the  question  of  knowledge  as  he  did  because 
Locke  left  it  where  he  did.  Twenty-eight  years  after  the 
appearance  of  Berkeley's  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge 
Hume  wrote  his  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  carrying  for- 
ward Experientialism  as  far  in  some  respects  as  it  could 
be  carried,  so  that  in  those  particular  lines  there  was 
nothing  left  for  followers  to  do.  He  excited  more  opposi- 
tion than  adherence  not  only  in  his  own  country,  but  notably 
in  Kant.  Hereby  English  philosophy,  as  in  the  case  of 
Locke  and  Leibniz,  came  into  contact  with  European 
thought. 

Psychological  Philosophy.     Associalionism. 

While  his  general  philosophy  was  thus  carried  out  by 
Berkeley  and  Hume  so  as  to  provoke  a  reaction,  Locke  set  on 
foot  another  movement.  Although  he  was  a  general  philo- 
sopher and  not  a  psychologist,  he  nevertheless  worked 
out  his  philosophy  in  a  psychological  spirit.  He  started 
from  the  psychologist's  point  of  view,  with  the  notion  of 
investigating  mind  in  the  same  scientific  way  as  Newton 
was  investigating  nature.  This  departure  had  an  effect  in 
the  very  next  generation  through  Berkeley,  who  carried  out 
special  psychological  investigation  with  surprising  acuteness 
in  his  New  Theory  of  Vision.  Hume  also,  without  putting 
forward  any  sysiem  of  psychology,  worked  in  a  psychological 
spirit,  and  discussed  particular  psychological  questions  in 
a  notable  way,  especially  the  laws  of  association  as  con- 
taining an  explanation  of  knowledge.  Again,  Hartley's 
work  on  Man  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  so-called 

F 


66  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Associationist  school,  which  in  psychology  tries  to  get  a 
scientific  doctrine  of  mind  as  such,  and  in  philosophy  tries 
to  solve  the  general  problem  of  knowledge  in  connexion 
with  that  scientific  doctrine. 

Now  it  is  usually  said  that  Hume  gave  a  great  impulse  to 
the  English  Associationist  movement.  My  belief,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  that  James  Mill  had  no  special  impulse  from  Hume. 
If  he  at  all  resembled  the  latter,  it  was  because  he  started  from 
a  similar  basis  tending  to  similar  conclusions.  The  origin 
of  the  later  Associationists  is  in  Hartley  and  not  in  Hume. 
Or,  to  put  it  more  adequately,  the  origin  of  the  present 
English  school  of  the  Mills  is  to  be  found  in  the  trio,  Locke, 
Berkeley,  and  Hartley,  rather  than  in  Hume1.  Hartley 
expressly  connected  himself  with  Locke,  as  Berkeley  did. 
Hume  expressly  connected  himself  with  Berkeley.  We  may 
tabulate  them  thus : — 

Locke 
I 


Hartley  Berkeley 

,        I  I 

James  Mill  Hume 

Hartley  needs  to  be  connected  with  Berkeley,  though  he 
did  not  expressly  borrow  from  him. 

James  Mill's  direct  descendant  is  Professor  Bain,  not 
John  Stuart  Mill,  who  follows  somewhat  more  in  the 
philosophical  wake  of  Hume.  Hartley  had  a  philosophy, 
but  not  an  effective  one ;  he  shone  as  a  psychologist. 
J.  S.  Mill  is,  nevertheless,  connected  with  Hartley  through 
his  father. 

Locke's  central  idea,  viz.  that  the  limits  of  our  knowing 

1  Vide  J.  S.  Mill's  introduction  to  J.  Mill's  Analysis  of  the  Human 
Mind. 


vii.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  67 

faculty,  in  regard  to  the  nature  and  the  validity  of  our 
knowledge,  are  only  to  be  understood  in  reference  to  a 
psychological  analysis,  was  introduced  into  France,  together 
with  the  Newtonian  philosophy  of  nature,  by  Voltaire  about 
1730,  supplanting  the  Cartesian  philosophy  in  both  meta- 
physic  and  science.  Condillac  (17 15-1780)  and  Destutt  de 
Tracy  (1 754-1836),  chief  among  French  Sensationalists, 
greatly  affected  the  Scottish  thinker,  Thomas  Brown.  Brown 
contributed  the  most  important  discussion  prior  to  Professor 
Bain  of  the  part  played  by  muscular  sense  in  objective 
perception,  and  still  holds  the  second  place. 

Of  present-day  Associationists,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  is 
chiefly  concerned  with  a  philosophy  of  evolution  on  a  basis 
of  biological  principles.  An  Experientialist,  he  approximates 
as  closely  to  the  Rationalist  border — by  allowing  non- 
experiential  elements  in  knowledge — as  Kant  did  from  the 
Rationalist  side  in  the  other  direction.  Mr.  Spencer  himself 
claims  to  be  just  on  the  border.  Many  think  he  unites  the 
two  sides.  Kant,  however,  laid  claim  to  a  similar  position, 
and  yet  was  very  distinct  from  Mr.  Spencer. 


For  Lecture  VIII  read  Bain,  Mental  Science,  App.  A.  to  p.  26. 


LECTURE  VIII. 

UNIVERSALS. 
Why  Scholasticism  was  mainly  occupied  with  '  Universalia.' 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  inquire  more  closely  into 
those  great  special  questions  raised  by  philosophic  thought 
which  I  enumerated  at  the  close  of  Lecture  III.  » 

From  Descartes  onward  the  great  question  of  philosophy 
has  been  as  to  the  relation  of  reason  and  experience  in 
knowledge.  Now,  Plato  and  Aristotle  (who  practically 
represent  ancient  epistemology  in  the  West)  were  interested 
both  in  this  problem  and  in  that  of  the  universality  of 
knowledge,  while  during  the  whole  of  the  middle  period  the 
central  question  of  philosophy  was  not  so  much  the  former 
as  that  of  the  relation  between  the  universal  and  the  particular 
in  knowledge.  The  more  modern  question  is,  after  all,  the 
same  as  the  latter,  but  in  another  form  and  with  a  difference 
of  emphasis;  experience  is  experience  of  particulars,  while 
reason  is  concerned  with  universals. 

Why,  then,  does  only  one  of  the  two  questions  occupy 
the  thought  of  the  Middle  Period?  The  fact  is  that  both 
the  middle  and  modern  periods  were  occupied  with  both 
questions,  or  with  these  two  aspects  of  the  more  general 
question,  viz.  as  to  the  import  of  human  knowledge ;  but  the 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  69 

thought  of  men  in  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  directed  to  the 
aspect  of  the  universality  of  knowledge  by  an  accidental 
circumstance.  This  circumstance  (v.  Bain,  App.  pp.  23,  24; 
and  supra,  Lect.  V)  was  that  one  portion  of  Porphyry's 
Isagoge,  containing  an  introduction  to  the  Categories  of 
Aristotle,  was  preserved  in  translation  during  the  early 
Middle  Ages,  whereas  it  was  not  till  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  that  the  Schoolmen  had  a  complete  translation  of 
Aristotle's  works.  Now  this  fragment  suggested  the  question 
of  the  relation  of  different  general  notions  to  one  another,  and 
hence  it  came  about  that  this  aspect  of  knowledge  occupied 
philosophers  predominantly  down  to  the  end  of  the  Scholastic 
period,  till  every  side  of  the  question  had  been  touched  upon 
and  they  had  come  to  practical  agreement.  Modern  philo- 
sophy also  agrees  in  the  main  upon  the  subject,  although  it 
was  bound  in  its  turn  to  reconsider  it.  The  difference 
in  modern  times  is  regarding  the  psychological  question. 

Concept  Psychologically  and  Philosophically  regarded. 

We  have  distinguished  knowledge  psychologically  regarded 
from  knowledge  philosophically  regarded.  Let  us  now  mark 
off  the  psychological  bearing  of  knowledge  as  universal  or 
general  from  the  philosophical  aspect.  General  intellection, 
knowing,  or  cognition  we  dealt  with  under  thought  or  con- 
ception (in  the  wider  sense),  and  for  the  product  of  conception 
we  used  the  term  concept.  And  the  psychological  question 
of  the  concept  became  for  us,  How  do  we  come  to  know 
generally?  How  do  we  arrive,  i.e.  under  what  laws  of 
mental  action  do  we  arrive,  at  that  kind  of  knowledge  which 
we  call  conceptual  ?  Conceiving  {Elements  of  Psychology, 
Lect.  XXV,  XXVI)  arises  under  certain  psychological 
laws  out  of  historically  prior  intellectual  products.     Now  of 


70  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

these  the  percept  has  corresponding  to  it  an  objective  thing — 
at  least,  we  assume  that  it  has — and  some  images  also  have 
a  corresponding  reality  in  the  realm  of  being,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  literal  re-percepts,  while  some  again  have  not.  But 
our  question  now  is,  Has  the  concept  a  corresponding  reality? 
Is  there,  for  instance,  a  real  being  to  correspond  to  the  concept 
'  man '  ?  Mill  calls  '  man '  concrete ;  is  it  as  concrete  as  'this 
man '  ?  No,  we  cannot  generalise  save  by  abstracting,  and 
'man'  is  abstract  as  involving  generalisation.  What  then 
does  this  abstract  generalisation  or  '  Universal '  portend  in  the 
sphere  of  being?  Is  it  a  mere  subjective  construction,  or 
does  the  concept  represent  reality  ?  What  is  the  relation  of 
'man'  the  'univeisal'  to  'this  man'  or  'that  man/  of  the 
General  to  the  Particular,  of  the  One  to  the  Many,  of  in- 
dividual changing  things  to  the  whole  universe  ?  Which  has 
reality  ?     If  only 

'  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass ' ; 

as  Shelley  sang ',  the  question  arises,  Do  the  Many  exist 
at  all? 

Platonic  Realism. 

Now  this  question,  applied  by  Schoolmen  to  religious  tenets, 
had  been  rationally  discussed  by  Plato,  who  probed  the  matter 
deeper  than  any  before  him.  By  Platonic  Realism  is  meant 
Plato's  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  the  One  to  the  Many,  of  the 
Universal  to  the  Particular.  His  standpoint  was  a  develop- 
ment of  the  question  as  faced  by  Socrates.  Socrates  saw 
that  human  knowledge  is  mainly  knowing  by  way  of  con- 
cepts, and  his  philosophy  was  summed  up  in  efforts  at 
getting  clear  general  notions.  We  arrive  at  knowledge  on 
a  large  scale  only  through  the  conceptual  form;  only  thus 

1  Elegy  to  Keats. 


viii.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  71 

can  we  bring  together  experience  as  knowledge.  If  we  know 
for  the  most  part  by  way  of  concepts,  if  all  that  we  can  call 
scientific  knowledge  is  conceptual,  i.e.  is  knowledge  of  classes 
or  kinds,  then  the  question  arises  whether  that  which  we 
know  in  the  form  of  concepts  or  ideas  does  not  represent 
reality,  or  that  which  truly  is.  Thus  Plato,  following  his 
master's  line  and  holding  that  knowledge  properly  so  called 
is  of  ideas  only,  declared  that  therefore  ideas  and  nought  else 
are  what  really  exist,  and  that,  by  comparison  with  the  ideas, 
known  and  really  existing,  anything  that  we  commonly  speak 
of  as  particular  things — things  of  sense — have,  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word,  no  reality,  and  are  only  pale  shadows  of 
real  existence.  So  far  from  asking,  as  might  in  these  times 
of  a  developed  psychology  be  asked,  whether  anything  corre- 
sponded to  the  concept  objectively  in  the  same  sense  as  is 
assumed  in  the  case  of  the  percept,  Plato  maintained  that 
it  was  the  concepts,  general  notions  or  ideas,  that  are  the 
only  real  beings,  and  not  so-called  individuals.  Table,'  for 
example,  exists ;  individual  tables  are  mere  passing  shows, 
while  the  idea  '  table '  exists  really  and  eternally.  If  any 
one  gets  a  true  knowledge  of '  table  '  it  is  not  by  way  of  sense, 
but  by  a  reminiscence  of  a  former  mental  life.  Tables — this 
table,  that  table — did  not  exist  yesterday,  will  not  exist  to- 
morrow. But  '  table '  was  before  all  tables,  and  will  be  after 
all  tables.  In  other  words,  the  particulars  of  sense,  whether 
considered  separately  or  brought  together  in  an  aggregate  or 
class,  do  not  really,  fully  exist.  That  only  can  be  said  really 
and  fully  to  exist  which  is  thought. 

Platonic  Idealism. 

This  theory — viz.  to  repeat,  that  if  it  is  the  idea  (universal  or 
general  notion)  which  we  are  dealing  with  ivhen  we  really  know, 


72  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

then  it  is  the  idea  only  that  really  exists — is  logically  possible 
on  the  ground  it  assumes,  and  marks  a  special  type  of  mind. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  it  came  to  be  called  by  the  Schoolmen, 
who  were  great  masters  of  nomenclature,  the  doctrine  of 
Realism.  Plato's  expression  of  this  view  has  never  been 
surpassed,  and  never  will  be.  But  if  he  is  the  greatest  of 
Realists  in  this  the  original  sense  of  the  term,  he  none  the 
less  remains  the  typical  Idealist  in  any  sense  and  for  all  time. 
For  Platonic  Realism  and  Platonic  Idealism  are  one  and  the 
same  doctrine,  Plato  being  a  Realist  because  of  the  reality  he 
ascribed  to  ideas,  and  an  Idealist  because  it  is  ideas  to  which 
he  ascribed  reality.  He  is  not  the  one  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  other,  unless  indeed  we  attach  to  Realism  and  Idealism 
the  meaning  they  have  come  to  bear  in  modern  times  as 
opposite  theories  of  our  perception  of  an  external  world1. 
In  that  case  Plato  ceases  to  be  a  Realist,  and  is  a  pure 
Idealist.  In  the  question  of  universals,  Realism  is  only 
another  aspect  of  the  more  general  Idealism. 

Aristotelian  Realism. 

What,  then,  is  the  antithesis  to  Realism  in  its  original  sense  ? 
The  theory  which  in  Aristotle  took  shape  as  a  doctrine  of 
essence,  and  which  became  divided  against  itself  as  the  con- 
trasted theories  of  Conceptualism  and  Nominalism  (names 
which  are  also  derived  from  the  nomenclature  of  Scholasticism), 
scarcely  constitutes  an  antithesis.  Aristotle  broke  away  from 
the  Realism  of  his  master  by  declaring  that  particular  things 
have  a  real  existence,  but  neither  they  nor  universals  exist 
independently  of  each    other ;    the   universal  exists  in  the 

1  The  student  must  not  confound  the  philosophical  connotations 
of  these  terms  with  their  modern  usage  in  artistic  and  literary 
criticism. — Ed. 


viil]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  73 

particular  as  its  essence.  He  may  thus  be  considered  as 
a  modified  Realist.  He  began  by  saying  that  all  things 
which  can  be  thought  of  or  predicated  can  be  brought  to  ten 
classes  or  categories  of  concepts.  But  only  the  first,  Sub- 
stance (ova-la),  can  be  the  subject  of  predication.  Quantity, 
Quality,  and  the  other  seven  attributes  do  not  exist  in  the 
same  sense  as  Substance.  Now  we  can  only  predicate  exist- 
ence of  a  concrete  thing,  not  of  an  idea.  Here  he  seems  to 
deny  reality  to  the  concept.  But  he  further  distinguishes 
between  a  first  and  a  second  substance,  the  first  applicable  to 
a  concrete  thing  of  sense  which,  informed  by  its  universal 
essence,  really  and  fully  exists,  and  is  the  subject  of  a  pro- 
position ;  the  second,  indicating  the  general  concrete,  may  be 
subject  or  predicate.     E.  g. 

Socrates         is  a  man. 

(1st  Substance)         (2nd  Substance) 

Man  is  mortal. 

In  this  way  existence  can  be  predicated  of  concept.  In- 
dividual things  are  substance  in  the  full  sense;  in  essence 
they  are  universals.     But  abstractions  have  no  real  existence. 

Universalia  post  rem. 

Plato's  position  of  extreme  Realism  being  summed  up  in 
the  scholastic  formula,  Universalia  ante  rem  {res— thing  of 
sense),  and  Aristotle's  modified  Realism  bein"g  described  as 
Universalia  in  re,  the  antithesis  to  Realism  for  which  there  is 
no  inclusive  name  is  best  brought  out  in  the  corresponding 
formula,  Universalia  post  rem ;  i.  e.  it  is  only  from  a  know- 
ledge of  things  in  particular  that  we  come  to  know  universals, 
in  other  words,  to  form  the  merely  subjective  constructions 
termed  concepts,  abstract  ideas  or  general  notions.     Only 


74  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

particular  things  exist ;  the  universal  is  a  mere  instrument  of 
thought  for  getting  at  a  knowledge  of  particulars.  This  was 
the  theory  of  Epicureans  and  Stoics. 

But,  as  I  have  indicated,  the  formula  was  interpreted  in 
two  ways.  When,  in  the  first  age  of  the  Schoolmen,  Platonic 
Realism  was  rampant,  an  extreme  form  of  Nominalism, 
viz.  that  the  general  thought  or  universal  is  a  name  and 
nothing  else  (vox  el  praeterea  nihil),  was  contended  for  by 
Roscellin.  We  cannot  think  generally  without  the  help  of 
names ;  what,  then,  is  the  universal  but  a  name  (tiomeri)  ?  This 
in  fact  was  the  anti-Realism  of  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans. 
Later,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  when  Scholasticism  was  at  its 
height,  the  predominant  Aristotelian  Realism  shaded  off  into 
Conceptualism,  viz.  that  the  universal  was  not  a  mere  word 
(flatus  vocis)  but  a  mode  of  human  cognition,  though  formed 
from  and  after  the  perception  of  particulars.  This  was 
coupled  with  the  doctrine  of  essences,  of  '  universalia  in  re.' 
Some  indeed  tried  to  reconcile  Platonic  Realism  with  it 
also  by  the  theory  of  the  real  existence  of  universals  in  the 
divine  mind.  When,  however,  Scholasticism  was  dying, 
William  of  Ockham  (a  village  in  Surrey)  gave  a  very  decided 
expression  to  Nominalism  as  opposed  to  Conceptualism, 
maintaining  that  the  mind  arrives  at  universals  through  the 
use  of  words.  And  at  the  end  of  the  Scholastic  period  the 
chief  thinkers  were  declared  Nominalists. 

Harmony  between  Science  and  Philosophy. 

After  two  centuries  of  transition  the  foremost  minds  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Descartes,  for  example,  turned  their  at- 
tention to  physical  nature  and  helped  to  create  modern  science. 
Now  the  modern  science  of  nature  is  based  on  a  philosophical 
view  that  is  antithetic  to  the  Platonic  theory.     Realism  has 


viii.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  75 

never  regained  its  importance  in  the  modern  period ;  it  was 
practically  overthrown  by  the  growth  of  positive  science.  Or 
we  may  say  that  modern  science  has  sprung  up  because  the 
philosophical  problem  of  Realism  was  fought  out.  The 
Realist  despises  the  things  of  sense  as  vain  shows  with  no 
reality.  The  man  of  science  says  they  do  exist  and  are  worth 
investigating.  With  Conceptualism  and  Nominalism,  on  the 
other  hand,  modern  science  can  get  on ;  they  in  fact  attuned 
men's  minds  for  scientific  research,  which  goes  on  the 
assumption  that  it  is  the  particular  things  which  really  exist, 
works  up  from  particulars  to  universals,  and  refuses  to  re- 
cognise the  truth  of  universals  without  verifying  by  particulars. 
Any  one  may  now  be  a  Platonic  Realist,  but  he  must  then 
give  up  the  modern  science  of  nature.  In  fact  there  always 
have  been  Realists  and  always  will  be.  It  was  a  mistake  for 
Mill  to  speak  of  Realism  as  exploded  (in  his  Examination  of 
Hamilton's  Philosophy).  Carlyle  was  a  Realist;  so  also  is 
Ruskin — great  men,  though  not  philosophers.  And  the 
standpoint,  consistently  developed,  leads  to  an  ascetic  doctrine 
of  morals.  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  recognise  the  hostility 
between  modern  science  and  Platonism,  and  this  is  why  they 
decry  the  former.  Carlyle  hated  science,  but  he  excepted 
mathematics,  as  did  Plato,  who  said  that  if  a  man  could  not 
'  geometrise  he  could  not  philosophise.  From  their  point  of 
view  science  cannot  but  be  absurd.  No  Realist  thinks  it 
worth  while  to  treat  of  physics  and  chemistry.  If  a  man 
prefers  to  live  in  the  contemplation  of  Eternal  Ideas,  this 
in  its  way  is  very  good.  Theologically  such  a  one  will  be 
a  Pantheist.  But  if  he  would  rise  to  something  worth  calling 
knowledge  of  nature,  the  right  way  is  that  of  positive  science, 
with  its  Inductive  Method  of  working  up  to  general  expressions 
from  particulars.     Positive  science  is  not  all-sufficient  for  the 


76  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

inquiring  mind,  and  should  be  supplemented  by  a  philosophy 
not  inconsistent  with  it.  But  Realism  is  inconsistent  with 
science.  No  person  who  is  at  heart  a  Realist  can  have  that 
kind  of  interest  in  particular  things  upon  which  thorough- 
going science  rests.  In  external  nature  we  must  start  from 
the  concrete  particular ;  hence  we  have  in  the  modern  period 
an  anti- Realistic  philosophy,  instead  of  an  antagonism  between 
our  philosophy  and  our  science. 


For  Lecture  IX  read  Bain,  loc.  cit.  pp.  26-33. 


LECTURE   IX. 

UNIVERSALS.      NOMINALISM    AND   CONCEPTUALISM. 

'Res'  as  real. 

Modern  philosophy  then,  as  being  in  the  main  concordant 
with  modern  science,  is  anti-Realistic,  or,  in  the  wider  sense 
of  the  word,  Nominalistic.  Philosophy  for  the  most  part, 
and  especially  English  philosophy,  has  assumed  that  the 
Platonic  doctrine  is  untenable,  and  that  some  form  of  the 
antithesis,  that  it  is  particular  things  which  really  exist, 
must  be  accepted.  Thus  in  modern  times  the  conflict  has 
been  narrowed  to  the  opposition  between  Nominalism  and 
Conceptualism.  The  great  question  now  became — Under 
what  conditions  does  the  human  mind  conceive  ?  What  con- 
stitutes thinking  as  opposed  to  other  modes  of  intellection  ? 

The  Ground  of  the  Problem  shifted. 

Note  that  the  problem  has  been  shifted  from  metaphysical 
to  psychological  ground.  It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  what 
may  be  said  really  to  exist.  Conceptualists  and  Nominalists 
agree  in  declaring  that  the  universal  has  only  a  subjective 
existence,  that  the  concept  has  no  objective  existence  like 
the  percept,  but  is  only  arrived  at  in  the  mind  with  a  view 
to  the  understanding  of  the  particulars.  This  is  the  anti- 
Realistic  metaphysic  of  their  position.  But  if  we  would 
give  any  more  positive  assertion  about  them,  we  must  do  so 


78  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

in  psychological  terms.  The  difference  between  them  is 
psychological  only,  and  it  has  played  an  important  part  in 
modern  psychology.  In  England,  where,  from  the  time  of 
Locke,  the  psychological  interest  began  to  prevail  and  where 
psychology  first  assumed  a  scientific  form,  that  difference  has 
been  much  discussed.  Not  so  abroad.  Hamilton,  it  is  true, 
made  light  of  the  difference,  but  then  his  psychology  is 
decidedly  weak. 

Nominalism  in  England. 

The  general  train  of  English  thought  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  Nominalism.  Now  the  thorough-going  Nomina- 
list says  two  things: — (1)  that  it  is  impossible  to  think 
generally  without  language;  (2)  that  the  mind  can  only 
represent  the  concrete  particular  as  such.  Hobbes  makes 
both  these  statements ;  Berkeley,  only  the  second ;  neverthe- 
less he  as  well  as  Hume  and  the  Mills  are  distinctly 
Nominalists,  though  in  different  senses.  Hobbes  seems  to 
say  that  thought  is  expression  in  words  and  nothing  else. 
Still  he  is  not  far  wrong.  It  is  since  his  time  that  the 
importance  of  language  in  the  function  of  conceiving  has 
been  emphasised.  Locke,  in  the  immortal  third  Book  of 
his  Essay,  is  strongly  Nominalislic  and  impressed  with  the 
necessity  of  language.  In  Book  IV,  however,  he  shows  a 
strong  Conceptualistic  vein,  maintaining  that  we  can  think 
of  '  triangle '  which  is  not  isosceles,  nor  equilateral,  nor 
scalene.  (This  Berkeley  denies.)  But  this  Conceptualism 
of  Locke's  is  probably  only  a  bad  way  of  distinguishing  the 
intension  from  the  extension  of  the  concept.  Because 
'  triangle '  *.*rtends  to  all  three,  no  one  of  the  three  particulars 
therefore  enters  into  the  ^tension  of  '  triangle.'  He  con- 
fuses the  abstract  with  the  general. 

The  Scottish  school,  on  the  other  hand,  is  more  Con- 


IX.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  79 

ceptualislic  than  the  English,  Dugald  Stewart  less  so  than 
others.  Reid  is  Conceptualistic.  Hamilton's  logic  is  dis- 
tinctly Conceplualistic,  yet  in  the  lectures  on  metaphysic  he 
adopts  Berkeley's  view.  Hamilton,  however,  does  not  so 
much  give  his  own  thinking  as  get  it  from  certain  German 
authorities. 

The  Mills,  I  have  said,  are  Nominalists ;  so  is  Professor 
Bain.  Taine's  chapter  on  the  Concept  is  the  best  state- 
ment of  good  Nominalistic  doctrine  (see  his  Intelligence). 

The  Ground  of  Difference. 
The  Conceptualists  say  that  the  concept  is  as  truly 
a  definite  fact  of  mental  construction,  an  actual  subjective 
somewhat  that  can  be  called  a  representation,  as  is  the 
percept.  Whereas,  according  to  all  Nominalists,  conceiving 
is  either  bringing  up  a  number  of  particulars  one  after 
another,  i.  e.  having  a  series  of  percepts,  or  else  we  are, 
when  conceiving,  only  imaging  a  particular  percept,  while 
leaving  out  of  sight  the  individual  particulars. 

There  are  Concepts  and  Concepts. 
But  Conceptualists  and  Nominalists  both  err  in  trying  to 
find  one  uniform  expression  for  a  very  graduated  aggregate. 
Concepts  vary  so  much  in  the  scale  of  abstractness  (cf.  'tiger,' 
1  iron,'  '  father,'  '  nation ')  that  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt  any 
uniform  representation  to  suit  all.  The  concept  is  not 
a  collection,  nor  a  series,  of  particular  images.  The  concept 
'sheep'  is  not  a  flock  of  sheep.  Just  as  we  distinguish 
between  the  collective  and  the  general,  so  we  must  distin- 
guish between  the  concept  and  a  series  of  percepts.  The 
former  is  a  means  of  bringing  together  a  multitude  otherwise 
than  as  a  series,  and  will  vary  in  definiteness  according  to 
the  degree  of  abstractness.     In  the  case  of  exactly  similar 


80  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

objects  the  concept  abstracts  from  the  differences  in  time 
and  space  only.  Generic  images  represent  the  truth  about 
those  concepts  where  the  similarity  is  very  overpowering. 
Sometimes,  finally,  conceiving  proceeds  by  way  of  symbols ; 
i.  e.  there  are  concepts  of  which  we  have  no  image  unless 
it  be  of  particulars  in  succession,  and  between  which  the 
likeness  is  fixed  by  a  word.  We  use  names  of  course  for 
individuals  as  well  as  for  concepts ;  indeed,  we  do  not  know 
a  thing  fully  till  we  know  its  name.  But  it  is  remarkable 
that  when  a  name  is  a  mere  adjunct  it  is  apt  to  be  forgotten ; 
but  where  a  conception,  e.g.  of  justice,  depends,  for  any 
coherence  and  definiteness  it  may  possess,  upon  having 
a  name,  we  do  not  forget  it. 

A  case  of  pathology  throws  light  here.  Some  forms  of 
organic  decay  are  connected  with  a  disturbance  of  the  faculty 
of  speech,  or  aphasia.  And  instances  of  this  occur  where 
the  intellectual  powers  are  very  little  affected.  The  patient, 
e.g.  is  able  to  speak  in  general  language,  but  forgets  the 
names  of  particular  kinds  of  things.  Emerson  in  his  last 
years  was  subject  to  this.  Words  like  '  table '  and  '  hat '  he 
could  not  recollect,  but  he  was  quite  able  to  substitute  more 
general  expressions,  e.  g.  '  Put  the  kind  of  thing  that  covers 
head  on  to  the  surface  that  has  legs.'  Names  of  definite 
concretes  were  forgotten  where  abstract  terms  were  still 
within  his  power.  Why?  Because  for  his  knowledge  of  the 
former  he  was  not  dependent  upon  language.  To  express 
the  relation  he  did  need  language ;  he  had  not  lost  speech 
where  it  was  indispensable. 

The  two  Types  of  Nominalism. 

Now  there  are  Nominalists  and  Nominalists.  Berkeley, 
for  example,  is  merely  anti-Conceptualistic,  and  owes   his 


ix.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  81 

reputation  for  Nominalism  solely  to  the  opinion  of  Hume. 
He  only  takes  up  the  negative  attitude,  that  there  is  no 
definite  representation  of  anything  but  either  as  perceived 
or  as  definitely  imaged.  He  says  nothing  about  the  necessity 
for  names.  On  the  contrary,  he  declares  that  we  can  think 
without  language,  and  that  we  should  think  better  than  we 
do,  could  we  keep  the  names  of  our  ideas  out  of  our  thoughts 
— so  strangely  has  knowledge  '  been  perplexed  and  darkened 
by  the  .  .  .  general  ways  of  speech1.'  Whereas  extreme 
Nominalists  like  Roscellin  declare  that  concepts  are  nothing 
more  than  names. 

With  regard  to  the  former  type  of  Nominalists,  there  is 
this  to  be  said: — So  far  from  it  being  true  that  the  idea 
is  always  of  a  particular  concrete,  it  might  be  maintained 
that  our  imagining  and  perceiving  are  always  a  kind  of 
abstraction.  Do  I,  in  looking  at  that  pillar,  perceive  all  the 
attributes?  No;  I  fill  it  in  by  repeated  perceptions.  My 
percept  of  it  at  any  moment  is  a  perception  of  it  under 
some  one  aspect  only.  Perception  of  a  particular  involves 
abstraction.  The  generic  image,  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded,  was  Mr.  Galton's  term  for  that  resultant  to  which, 
he  affirmed,  a  number  of  like  images  give  rise — a  resultant 
which  is  not  like  any  one  of  them,  nor  is  the  whole 
together,  but  is  yet  representative  of  all  {El.  of  Psy.  p.  168). 
This  position  was  supported  by  the  now  widely  practised 
composite  photography,  by  which  Mr.  Galton  obtained 
not  a  blur  of  many  faces,  but  an  actual  portrait,  yet  not 
of  any  one  individual.  This  does  not  prove  anything  in 
relation  to  our  conscious  experience,  but  it  may  well  be 
that  the  process  of  conceiving  is  analogous.  But  in  so  far 
as  the  Conceptualists  maintain  that  we  have  always  a  clear 
1  Berkeley,  Principles,  Introduction. 
G 


82  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

consciousness  of  a  body  of  concepts  as  such,  they  go  too  far. 
No  Conceptualist  has  ever  given  a  sufficient  and  satisfactory 
analysis  of  general  knowledge. 

The  Truth  in  Nominalism. 

With  regard,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  latter  type  of 
Nominalists,  whereas  their  identifying  the  concept  with 
a  name  and  nothing  more  is  nonsensical  and  goes  too  far 
in  the  opposite  direction,  they  are  right  to  the  extent  of 
maintaining  that  all  the  more  purely  abstract  ideas  are  had 
through  and  by,  and  not  without,  the  help  of  signs,  viz. 
language.  Here — '  no  speech,  no  thought.'  In  proportion 
as  thought  becomes  more  general  and  more  abstract,  it  needs 
some  kind  of  instrument  to  work  with.  All  thinking  that  is 
more  than  rudimentary  necessitates  language.  Savages  with 
poor  language  have  poor  thoughts.  We  must  be  careful  to 
distinguish.  Can  we  know  without  speech  ?  Unquestionably. 
Can  we  think  (know  generally,  generalise)  without  speech  ? 
Only  to  an  elementary  extent.  The  proper  position  then 
to  take  is  that  our  power  of  bringing  percepts  together  into 
concepts  depends  upon  our  power  of  using  signs.  Science, 
which  is  general  knowledge,  is  found  to  progress  according 
as  it  becomes  embodied  in  a  definite  system  of  symbols. 
Condillac  the  Sensationalist  had  so  strong  an  opinion  of  the 
importance  of  language  that  he  defined  a  science  as  une 
langue  bien  faiie.  Indeed,  Nominalism  is  often  supposed  to 
be  connected  with  Sensationalism,  because  the  two  theories 
are  associated  in  Condillac's  philosophy.  But  it  is  just 
sensation  that  is  independent  of  names  and  symbols.  The 
error  of  the  Sensationalist  school  consisted,  as  Mansel  pointed 
out,  in  confounding  the  indispensable  instrument  of  thought 
with  thought  itself.     Philosophy  is  so  backward  because  it 


IX.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  83 

has  not  a  set  of  symbols  for  itself,  but  has  to  work  with 
popular  names.  Nothing  can  be  called  an  element  of 
knowledge  till  it  is  taken  up  by  others  and  thrown  back 
on  the  speaker.  People  who  are  cut  off  from  the  use  of 
language  are  found  to  have  imperfect  powers  of  generalisa- 
tion. Even  with  their  manual  system  the  dumb  cannot 
develop  any  great  ability  for  generalising.  The  signs  no  doubt 
are  less  pliable,  but  the  chief  reason  is  that  they  are  still  cut 
off  from  communication  wiih  the  majority  of  their  fellows. 
Speech  is,  as  we  saw  in  our  psychology,  a  social,  not  an 
individual,  product.  It  is  with  the  need  of  communicating 
that  speech  arises.  '  Sheep '  may  be  imaged  in  general 
without  language,  but  a  variety  which  we  cannot  image 
1  squeezes  out,'  i.  e.  expresses,  some  general  sign  from  us. 
But  this  squeezing  out  would  not  have  taken  place  but  for 
the  requirements  of  the  common  life.  A  man  does  not  con- 
ceive for  himself  but  in  relation  to  others.  Thus  the  true 
psychology  of  conception  throws  us  back  on  the  origin  of 
speech.  And  hence  what  a  man  shall  think  will  depend  less 
on  what  he  is  in  himself  than  on  his  social  circumstances. 
If  left  to  himself,  his  mental  powers  would  be  comparatively 
undeveloped.  If  knowledge  were  a  mere  aggregate  of  sensa- 
tions, the  savage  might  be  better  off  than  other  people.  The 
superiority  of  civilised  people  consists  in  the  fact  that  there 
are  expressions  in  force  for  the  new-born  individual  to  avail 
himself  of.  It  is  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  importance 
of  this  factor,  and  of  late  years  this  idea  of  the  great  part 
played  by  language  in  helping  us  to  arrive  at  knowledge,  to 
which  by  ourselves  we  could  not  have  attained,  has  been 
gaining  ground  l. 

1  Cf.  e.  g.  Professor  Sayce's  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Language. 
See  also  Mind,  i.  263,  and  iv.  149,  on  the  education  of  Laura  Bridgman. 


84  Elements  of  General  Philosophy, 

Conclusion. 

I  do  not,  then,  profess  to  solve  the  philosophic  question  at 
issue.  Any  man's  philosophy  is  the  expression  of  his  whole 
being;  in  every  man's  thinking  there  must  be  a  personal 
subjective  element.  For  me  the  true  doctrine  lies  partly 
with  Conceptualism  and  partly  with  Nominalism.  It  is 
a  case  of  the  shield  with  two  sides :  each  theory  says  it  has 
only  one,  and  therein  lies  the  error  as  well  as  the  truth  of 
each.  Each  side  makes  statements  that  are  too  absolute: 
they  are  true  in  what  they  affirm  and  false  in  what  they  deny. 
Conception  varies  too  much  for  any  universal  statement  as 
to  concepts  to  hold  good.  But  the  statement  that  there  may 
be  a  representation  that  is  definite  without  being  particular 
is  true. 


For  Lecture  X  read : — 
Bain,  op  cit.  Book  IV,  ch.  viii. 

The  student  may  also  refer  to  Professor  James's  article :   '  The 
Psychology  of  Belief,'  Mind,  xiv.  p.  321. 


LECTURE  X. 

THE  NATURE  OF  KNOWLEDGE.   KNOWLEDGE  AND  BELIEF. 

Transition  to  the  Second  Question. 

Some  concepts,  then,  at  least  are  explicable  from  sense- 
perception,  i.  e.  are  formed  by  way  of  abstraction  from . 
particular  experiences.  Are  all  concepts  formed  thus,  or 
are  some  obtained  otherwhence  ?  What,  in  other  words, 
does  sense  contribute  to  knowledge?  Granted  that  sense 
is  of  account  for  knowledge,  it  does  not  follow  that  know- 
ledge is  mere  sense  or  sense  transformed.  Thus  we  connect 
the  question  of  universals  with  the  controversy  on  the  Nature, 
or,  as  it  is  also  called,  the  Origin  of  Knowledge,  which  is 
the  great  central  problem  in  dispute  among  the  philosophers 
of  the  modern  period. 

The  Origin  of  Knowledge  is  not  a  good  name  for  this 
question ;  it  is  too  psychological,  and  the  philosophical 
question  is  not  answered  together  with  the  psychological 
question.  What  we  have  to  consider  is  the  Nature  of 
Knowledge — how  knowledge  is  constituted.  Whereas  in 
psychology  we  do  not  exhaust  the  consideration  of  know- 
ledge properly  so  called. 


86  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Knowledge  and  Belief. 

Now  the  term  '  knowledge '  is  necessary  for  philo- 
sophy, especially  modern  philosophy,  the  central  thought 
of  which,  from  its  beginning  with  Descartes,  is  that  we 
cannot  determine  the  nature  of  being  before  we  have 
determined  the  nature  of  knowing,  and  that  in  any  ultimate 
question  we  are  strictly  considering  not  so  much  what  we 
are  as  what  we  know  that  we  are.  Hence  we  see  the 
advantage  of  getting  a  word  that  is  purely  psychological, 
like  intellection. 

We  have  also  asserted  that  the  term  'belief  is  of  import 
for  philosophy.  Belief  has  both  a  psychological  explanation 
and  a  philosophical  import  very  much  implicated  in  the 
question  of  the  nature  or  origin  of  knowledge,  and  therefore 
it  is  that  a  short  consideration  of  belief  under  both  aspects 
will  serve  to  show  the  bond  and  the  distinction  between 
psychology  and  philosophy,  and  also  to  introduce  our 
special  subject. 

The  Psychology  of  Belief     . 

Belief  is  a  kind  of  conscious  experience.  Our  psycho- 
logical question  is  to  determine  which  kind.  Professor  Bain 
appears  to  treat  it  as  a  kind  of  volition  by  putting  it  under 
the  head  of  Will.  This  is  not  so  bad  as  it  looks,  for  by 
Will  he  means,  as  we  know,  Conation ;  wherefore  he  does 
not  mean  that  when  a  man  is  believing  he  is  necessarily 
willing,  or  making  a  voluntary  determination.  What  then 
does  he  mean  ?  He  places  the  consideration  of  belief  where 
he  does  because  he  finds  it  has  a  certain  reference  to  action. 
In  believing  we  are  ready  to  act ;  unless  we  can  show  some 
kind  of  reference  to  action  we  are  not  believing.  Under 
Will  he  deals  with  all  activities  as  set  on  by  feeling,  and 


x.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  87 

generally  with  all  motives  to  action,  Belief  being  taken  as 
one  such  motive.  I  excuse  the  arrangement  but  do  not 
justify  it.  Whatever  else  Belief  is,  this  is  not  the  most  funda- 
mental aspect.  In  willing  we  are  doing  something  else  than 
believing ;  in  believing  we  are  doing  something  else  than  will- 
ing. We  all  believe  that  life  must  come  to  an  end,  but 
this  is  different  from  willing  to  die. 

Yet,  while  there  is  an  obvious  difference  between  willing 
and  believing,  there  is  a  subtle  underlying  connexion 
between  the  two.  How  often  do  we  not  say,  a  man  believes 
a  thing  because  he  wants  it  so  ?  How  much  is  not  our 
belief  an  expression  of  our  wishes  ?  It  is  quite  possible  to 
go  on  willing  so  intently  that  we  end  by  believing.  And 
I  think  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  Professor  Bain's  mind  in 
his  choice  of  treatment  here.  There  is  something  in  believ- 
ing which  has  a  special  kind  of  relation  to  willing. 

But  is  the  fact  that  what  we  believe  we  are  prepared 
to  act  on  a  real  differential  attribute  of  Belief,  marking  it 
off  from  other  conscious  experience?  Is  there  any  other 
state  of  mind  where  we  are  prepared  to  act  ?  Yes ;  if  I  am 
prepared  to  act  on  belief,  I  am  still  more  prepared  to  act 
on  knowledge ;  e.  g.  if  I  believed  there  were  a  tiger  in  the 
next  room,  I  might  venture  to  peep  in ;  but  if  I  were  '  sure,' 
if  I  knew  there  was,  I  should  at  once  proceed  either  to  lock 
myself  in  here  or  to  run  downstairs.  This  reference  to  action 
therefore,  which  unquestionably  belongs  to  belief,  is  not  its 
distinctive  attribute  since  it  is  at  least  equally  characteristic 
of  another  state. 

What  else  has  Professor  Bain  said?  That  our  beliefs 
always  contain  an  element  of  feeling.  When  we  are  believing 
we  are  always  at  the  same  time  emotionally  affected.  Is  this 
the  differentia  of  belief  as  compared  with  knowledge  ?     Yes, 


88  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

belief  distinctly  varies  with  feeling.  Is  our  tiger  heard 
scratching,  the  bold  one  says,  Nonsense !  the  timorous  one 
says,  Yes,  it  is  there !  But  knowledge  is  intellectual  expres- 
sion apart  from  feeling.  2  +  2  =  4,  however  you  may  feel. 
It  is  a  valuable  point  in  Professor  Bain's  exposition  to  have 
thus  connected  belief  with  original  spontaneity  of  feeling, 
with  difference  of  temperament. 

We  see  then  the  difference  between  I  imagine,  I  believe, 
I  know,  a  tiger  is  in  class-room  No.  3.  Belief  is  something 
like  knowledge,  but  falling  short  of  it.  We  may  know  that 
9x7  =  63,  but  a  child  who  does  not  yet  understand  the 
multiplication  table  may  say,  I  feel  sure  that  9x7  =  63. 
'  Sure '  shows  the  connexion  with  intellection^  '  feel '  the 
emotional  aspect.  Again,  the  phrase  morally  certain,  another 
equivalent  for  '  believe,'  brings  out  the  conational  aspect : 
'  certain '  is  intellective,  •  morally '  means  '  certain  so  as  to 
act  upon  it,'  but  not  absolutely  certain.  Not  full  knowledge, 
but  probability,  and  that  is  after  all  the  guide  of  life. 

This  distinctly  emotional  character  of  belief  may  help  us 
to  understand  the  relation  of  belief  to  conation.  Conation 
is  action  under  an  impulse  of  feeling,  action  that  is  feeling- 
guided  or  determined  by  feeling ;  it  is  action  for  an  '  end,' 
and  '  end '  always  involves  feeling.  Belief  is  not  action  for  an 
end,  in  order  to  feeling,  but  is  something  that  goes  on  under 
feeling.  Thus  we  see  how  easily  the  one  could  pass  into  the 
other,  how  action  for  feeling  may  result  in  action  under 
feeling,  so  that  what  we  will  in  starting,  we  end  by  believing. 

Well  then,  whatever  emotional  elements  there  may  be 
in  belief,  there  is  something  in  it  non-emotional.  Here  again 
we  shall  find  the  relation  of  belief  to  conation  brought  out 
markedly.  In  the  instance  of  volition  employed  in  our  course 
of  Psychology,  namely,  '  I  will  to  open  the  door/  can  I  will 


x.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  89 

to  open  it  without  either  knowing  it  can  be  opened,  or 
believing  it  can  be  opened?  No,  and  hence  whatever  we 
call  volition  involves  intellection.  Believing  the  door  can 
be  opened  and  willing  to  open  it  are  not  the  same,  but  the 
difference  in  my  confidence  lies  between  my  believing  that 
the  door  opens  in  a  certain  way  and  my  knowing  that  it 
does.  What  then  is  there  common  to  the  belief  and  the 
knowledge  as  such?  A  fact  of  intellectual  representation. 
Belief  is  essentially  a  representative  state  of  mind,  and  repre- 
sentation, as  we  know,  enters  into  all  intellection.  But 
willing,  or  the  disposition  to  act,  is  as  such  not  representation, 
is  not  intellection  with  its  discriminating  and  assimilating. 
In  believing  we  are  intellective,  as  in  knowing.  I  believe  the 
moon  is  round,  i.e.  I  represent  the  back  of  it.  Were 
the  moon  to  turn  round,  I  should  know — at  least  more  than 
I  do  now.  Belief,  then,  is  fundamentally  a  mode  of  intel- 
lection. But  whereas  knowledge  is,  from  the  psychological 
point  of  view,  adequately  and  exhaustively  expressed  as 
intellectual  representation,  belief,  from  the  same  point  of 
view,  is  not  adequately  and  exhaustively  expressed  as  intel- 
lectual representation,  because  of  the  feeling  involved  in  it. 

The  Essential  Complexity  of  Belief. 

Since  belief  is  fundamentally  a  mode  of  intellection,  and  to 
a  certain  extent  a  mode  of  feeling  also,  it  cannot  be  treated 
as  merely  a  mode  of  conation.  Professor  Bain  indeed  only 
seems  to  do  this;  his  exposition  really  comes  to  this,  that 
belief  is  a  kind  of  intellectual  representation,  accompanied 
with,  and  liable  to  be  modified  by,  feeling  and  involving 
essentially  readiness  to  act.  The  result  for  us  is,  that  we 
cannot  refer  belief  to  any  one  phase  of  mind.  It  is  an 
essentially  complex  mental  state,  describable  in  every  one 


90  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

of  the  three  phases — a  mode  of  representative  intellection, 
tinged  with  feeling,  having  relation  to  the  native  tendency  to 
act.  I  wish  not  to  divorce  belief  from  action.  I  would 
assert  their  connexion  more  decisively  and  explicitly  even 
than  Professor  Bain.  We  allow  in  life  that  a  man's  belief 
is  justified  by  his  actions.  Popular  consent  and  psychological 
inquiry  converge  on  this  point.  Where  we  are  not  prepared 
to  act  we  don't  believe.  Many  beliefs,  it  is  true,  like  many 
cognitions,  seem  to  have  no  relation  to  action,  e.  g.  my  belief 
that  the  moon  is  round.  But  this  belief  implies  that  if 
I  were  projected  thither,  I  should  in  exploring  be  able  to 
make  the  tour  of  it.  There  is  no  belief  and  no  cognition 
that  cannot,  may  not,  I  ave  a  reference  to  action,  but  cog- 
nitions rather  than  beliefs.  Judgment,  memory,  expectation, 
all  imply  a  relation  to  action,  while  other  modes  of  intellection 
— reflexion,  reverie,  imagining  (in  the  narrower  sense) — are 
as  such  accompanied  by  a  more  receptive  attitude  of  mind. 
It  is  true  that  all  developed  volition  also  involves  feeling  and 
intellection,  but  that  does  not  prove  that  the  bare  fact  of 
volition  or  conation  is  anything  beyond  impulse  to  act. 
Therefore  we  hold  by  our  three  phases,  and  say  that  volition 
(will)  is  complex  and  belief  is  complex. 

Disbelief  and  Doubt. 

Two  other  topics  connected  with  belief  should  be  con- 
sidered, viz.  disbelief  and  doubt.  Disbelief  is  itself  belief, 
namely,  in  the  truth  of  the  opposite;  there  is  nothing  to 
be  said  of  it  which  has  not  already  been  said  of  belief. 
Doubt,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  opposite,  the  contradictory 
of  belief.  It  is  not  present  when  we  are  believing,  or  at 
least  in  as  far  as  we  are  believing,  but  it  is  only  really 
excluded  by  knowledge.     In  proportion  as  belief  is  remote 


X.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  91 

from  knowledge,  doubt  tends  to  be  the  more  present.  Doubt 
is  also  complex,  having  its  three  aspects — it  paralyses 
action,  involves  wavering  representation,  is  of  marked 
emotional  character.  We  want  to  know  (i.  e.  to  represent 
clearly,  if  we  cannot  attain  to  presentative  consciousness), 
and  we  cannot.  Consequently  representation  follows  repre- 
sentation, one  chasing  another  and  being  itself  chased  away 
— a  wavering  intellectual  condition  which  in  its  emotional 
aspect  is  essentially  distressing. 

The  Philosophy  of  Belief. 

Belief  and  knowledge,  then,  have  each  a  practical  aspect. 
They  are  not  simply  subjective  states  or  mental  facts,  but 
are  related  to  a  something  believed  or  known,  which  cannot 
be  adequately  expressed  in  terms  of  bare  subjective  experi- 
ence, i.  e.  of  psychology.  Conceiving  and  thinking  may 
be  said  to  have  an  object  in  the  concept  or  thought,  but 
there  is  nothing  in  either,  nor  in  the  image,  that  is  not  fully 
accounted  for  by  psychology  alone.  But  the  object  of  belief 
or  of  knowledge  is  expressed  in  terms  of  fact,  objective  fact, 
real  existence,  reality,  which  cannot  be  exhausted  by  psycho- 
logical inquiry.  Now  a  real  belief  is  one  we  are  prepared  to 
act  on.  Mere  imagining  is  representing  what  is  out  of 
relation  to  our  actions.  We  may  also  conceive  what  is  out 
of  such  relation,  whereas  my  readiness  to  act  on  what 
I  believe  determines  the  reality  of  that  belief.  Every  cogni- 
tion and  every  belief  has  or  may  have  relation  to  action — 
and  I  can  find  no  other  meaning  of  Reality. 

We  distinguish  in  ourselves  a  mental  constitution  con- 
cerned with  the  functioning  of  a  bodily  organism.  Let  us 
put  ourselves  on  physiological  ground : — the  organism  is 
liable  to  be  affected  and  to  send  forth  impulse ;  when  stimu- 


92  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

lated,  we  act ;  this  is  the  most  fundamental  fact.  Of  course 
we  can  act  apart  from  external  stimuli,  and  we  can  be 
stimulated  without  ensuing  overt  action.  But,  broadly 
speaking,  action  follows  from  stimulus.  Now  therefore 
reflex  action  is  the  type  of  action ;  any  act  may  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  reflex  action.  The  efficacy  of  the  act  depends, 
in  the  last  resort,  on  the  stimulus  received.  And  it  is  the 
stimulus  received  that  suggests  what  we  call  Real  in  giving 
us  occasion  for  acting.  There  is  no  mark  of  unreality 
more  fundamental  than  the  absence  of  any  tendency  to 
produce  activity.  Here  then  are  philosophical  implications : 
it  is  the  deepest  meaning  of  Reality  that  it  gives  occasion  for 
action,  that  it  is  that  to  which  action  has  relation. 

So  far  belief  and  knowledge  are  parallel ;  so  far  we  can 
only  distinguish  them  both  from  imagination,  &c.  We  must 
go  further  than  this.  There  are  two  philosophical  aspects 
of  the  relation  of  belief  to  knowledge :  (i)  of  belief  as  some- 
thing less  than  knowledge;  (2)  of  knowledge  as  based  on 
belief,  i.e.  as  explained  by  certain  principles  underlying 
knowledge  which  themselves  we  cannot  know,  but  can  only 
hold  as  beliefs.     We  must  face  both. 

Belief  as  Inadequate  Knowledge. 

The  first  is  the  common  usage.  Of  two  intellective  acts 
(to  keep  to  psychological  terms)  to  which  we  ascribe  reality, 
it  is  to  knowledge  that  we  ascribe  it  more  confidently,  inas- 
much as  knowledge  involves  less  representation  and  more 
presentation  than  belief.  As  the  presentative  element  pre- 
ponderates, so  does  belief  merge  into  knowledge;  the 
attention  we  give  is  then  called  knowledge.  Taking  my 
treatment  of  Seeing  and  Touch  we  can  generalise  therefrom. 
Sight  gives  knowledge  in  regard  to  some  cognitions,  but  belief 


x.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  93 

relatively  to  Touch.  The  difference  between  belief  and 
knowledge  depends  on  the  possibility  of  verification.  In  Logic 
a  hypothesis  is  the  best  representation  we  can  make  under 
given  circumstances.  Theory,  as  opposed  to  hypothesis, 
is  knowledge  as  distinct  from  belief.  What  is  now  belief 
may,  at  another  point  of  view  or  time,  amount  to  knowledge. 
■  Seeing  is  believing,  but  touch  is  the  real  thing.'  Till  I  touch 
that  pillar,  I,  strictly  speaking,  believe  it  is  one  ;  much  more  if 
I  am  out  of  the  room.  I  am  then  thrown  on  to  representa- 
tive consciousness.  I  believe  in  default  of  knowing.  Not 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  pure  presentation,  or  that  there 
is  no  presentation  in  belief.  Belief  is  relative  predominance 
of  representative  consciousness.  Touch  is  relatively  pre- 
sentative  to  Sight.  Perception  involves  belief,  yet  it  is  more 
knowledge  than  other  intellective  functions  are. 

Knowledge  as  based  on  Belief. 

But  if  intellection,  in  so  far  as  it  has  presentative  elements, 
is  knowledge  and,  in  so  far  as  it  has  representative  ele- 
ments, is  belief,  how  is  it  that  we  can  speak  of  knowing 
anything  by  re-representative  intellection,  e.  g.  when  we 
are  reasoning  about  facts  in  general  terms?  Take  the 
argument,  '  Kings  are  mortal  because  they  are  men/  This 
is  an  act  of  intellection  that  would  be  admitted  as  a  clear 
case  of  knowledge,  not  belief — of  reasoned,  though  not  presen- 
tative, knowledge.  Hence  we  may  have  knowledge  away 
from  a  presentative  base  when  dealing  with  concepts.  This 
is  deductive  reasoning,  or  knowledge  of  the  why.  If  I  say 
'  I  know  kings  are  mortal/  and  am  asked  how  I  know,  my 
answer  is,  '  Because  they  are  men ' ;  and  this  is  accepted 
because  I  know  not  only  the  fact  but  the  why. 

Does  this   give  rise  to   any  further  question  about  the 


94  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

relation  between  knowledge  and  belief?  We  may  say 
'  Kings  are  mortal,  for  kings  are  men ' ;  but  then  arises  the 
question,  '  Do  you  knozv  men  are  mortal,  or  do  you  only 
believe  it?'  One  assertion  given  as  the  basis  of  another 
may  be  regarded  as  a  ground  for  knowledge,  but  it  only 
throws  back  the  difficulty.  As  to  the  ground  of  that  funda- 
mental assertion,  How  do  we  know  men  are  mortal? — We 
say, '  Because  men  are  animals.'  Now  if  anybody  is  prepared 
to  say  he  accepts  the  mortality  of  animals  on  inductive 
experience,  the  question  is  whether  this  is  to  be  called  belief 
or  knowledge.  Certainly  whatever  we  inductively  infer  (if 
it  be  material  induction)  is  belief  rather  than  knowledge.  If 
a  material  induction  goes  beyond  the  experience  on  which 
it  is  based — and  to  be  a  real  induction  it  must — then  it  is 
a  case  of  belief  rather  than  knowledge.  Whatever  we  have* 
direct  experience  of  we  may  be  said  to  know;  hence  an 
inductive  inference  is  always  more  or  less  hypothetical  or 
probable  only. 

We  see,  then,  that  what  is  confessedly  mere  belief,  viewed 
with  reference  to  the  experience  from  which  it  was  inferred, 
becomes  the  ground  of  knowledge  both  in  induction  and 
deduction.  Our  statement  is  belief  or  knowledge  according 
to  the  point  of  view  from  which  we  make  our  major  premise. 
Thus : — '  All  men  are  mortal '  is  knowledge,  if  got  by  deduc- 
tion from  'All  animals  are  mortal,'  but  belief,  if  got  as 
inductive  inference  from  experience.  Our  knowledge  that 
is  got  by  reasoning  may  always  be  looked  at  in  relation  to 
two  sources:— first,  as  experience  or  generalisation  beyond 
experience,  i.e.  as  belief.  But,  in  the  second  place,  are 
there  not  other  sources  of  knowledge  ?  Beside  the  particular 
facts  of  experience  we  need  to  assume  certain  general 
principles  to  account  for  knowledge,  allowed  even  by  those 


x.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  95 

who  emphasise  the  sufficiency  of  experience.  It  is  impossible 
for  me  to  perform  a  careful  induction  from  experience  without 
such  an  assumption  as  the  'Uniformity  of  Nature.'  Mill, 
striving  here  to  preserve  consistency,  maintains  that  this  is 
itself  an  induction  from  particulars ;  and  we  must  grant  that 
much  that  is  taken  by  us  as  generality  for  controlling  individual 
experience  may  be  seen  gradually  developing  in  force  as 
induction  based  on  experience,  according  as  it  is  in  con- 
formity with  that  experience.  But  I  hold  that  we  should 
not  in  the  least  hesitate  to  allow,  in  addition  to  experience 
as  a  source  of  knowledge,  the  assumption  of  some  general 
principles,  before  or  apart  from  experience,  though  never 
to  be  held  independent  of  verification.  In  whatever  way 
I  have  hold  of  them,  e.g.  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature, 
whether  I  believe  or  know,  I  believe  raiher  than  I  know. 
If  the  uniformity  of  Nature  is  an  induction  from  experience, 
we  can  but  say  we  believe  it ;  if  it  be  an  assumption  made 
by  way  of  pure  postulate  or  hypothesis,  we  believe  still  more. 
To  know  Nature  in  detail  is  found  to  be  impossible  except 
on  the  ground  of  the  uniformity  of  Nature ;  and  is  not  this 
belief — which  is  what  we  assume  by  way  of  a  postulate  for 
action — postulated  because  we  cannot  get  on  without  it  ? 
Hence  belief  much  better  expresses  the  uniformity  of  Nature 
because  of  its  highly  representative  character.  And  so,  from 
our  point  of  view,  we  come  round  to  the  conclusions  of 
Hamilton  and  Augustin.  Knowledge  is  more  than  belief, 
yet  involves  certain  principles  held  as  belief. 

It  seems  strange  that  belief  should  thus  be  something  less 
than  knowledge  and  yet  the  basis  of  knowledge,  but  if  we 
remember  the  relation  to  action  which  is  common  to  both, 
and  which  is  the  ultimate  meaning  of  their  reality,  then  we 
see  how  it  is  that  the  foundations  of  knowledge  are  held 


$6  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

rather  as  belief  than  as  knowledge.  Particular  facts  got  by 
an  approximately  presentative  experience  are  knowledge, 
but  not  getieral  knowledge.  For  that  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
coherent  system  with  a  foundation  expressed  as  general 
principles ;  and  these  are  believed  in  rather  than  known. 


For  Lecture  XI  read : — 
Bain,  op.  cit.  App.  B,  for  an  able  and  useful  historical  exposition 
of  Experience  and  Intuition. 

Locke,  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  I. 


LECTURE  XL 

THE   NATURE    OF    KNOWLEDGE.       BEFORE    LOCKE. 
The  Objectivity  of  Knoivledge. 

Belief  and  knowledge  then  are  conceptions  that  are 
closely  intertwined,  and  the  difference  between  them  is  one 
of  degree,  or  lies  in  the  way  of  looking  at  the  same  fact. 
Let  us  now  see  how  the  whole  question  has  been  faced  by 
philosophers;  what  it  is  that  the  problem  of  knowledge 
involves.  It  is  a  subject  that  appeals  most  generally  to  our 
interest,  and  it  is  suggested  by  our  previous  psychology. 

Knowledge,  as  involving  more  than  mere  intellection,  is 
a  coherent  system  which  we  call  real,  fact,  objectively  valid. 
I  want  to  bring  prominently  forward  this  Objectivity  of 
Knowledge.  The  word  'objective'  in  philosophy  is  taken 
in  a  wider  sense  than  in  psychology,  where  it  is  the  adjective 
of  the  perceived  object ;  here  it  applies  to  all  real,  valid 
knowledge,  whether  of  sense-objects  or  no.  All  objects 
indeed  can  be  shown  to  be  ultimately  objects  perceived  by 
sense,  but  we  are  now  concerned  with  '  objective '  as  applied 
to  that  knowledge  which  is  valid  for  the  consciousness  of  all, 
not  only  for  mine  but  also  for  that  of  every  one.  I  know 
that  2  x  2  =  4,  that  the  earth  attracts  stones,  that  every  effect 
has  a  cause :  these  are  cognitions  and  objectively  valid,  yel 

H 


98  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

not  sense-objects ;  I  do  not  say,  without  relation  to  sense  at 
all,  but  not  involving  sense  as  such.  Something  may  be 
a  fact  about  a  particular  object  or  not  a  fact,  but  as  fact  it 
must  hold  for  all.  Do  I  know  objectively  ?  Then  I  must  so 
think  that  you  can  think  it  too.  I  know  nothing  really  unless 
I  can  show  that  you  are  capable  of  knowing  it  as  well  as  I. 
We  must  not  imagine  there  is  any  objectivity  without  a 
subject;  knowledge  always  involves  a  knower;  still  it  is 
possible  for  me  to  put  together  in  my  mind  a  synthesis  which 
will  not  hold  good  for  any  but  myself;  but  then  I  cannot  give 
grounds  for  it  to  other  people,  so  that  it  has  no  objective 
validity.  Suppose  I  said,  '  The  effect  always  goes  before  its 
cause' — this  would  be  an  example  of  a  cognition  lacking 
objective  validity  \  No  account  which  fails  to  bring  forward 
this  aspect  of  knowledge  grapples  with  the  question  of  the" 
nature  of  knowledge ;  it  may  contain  good  psychology,  but 
it  must  fall  short  in  philosophy. 

How  the  Problem  has  been  met. 

We  see,  however,  that  if  we  have  to  find  subjective  repre- 
sentations which  can  be  set  forth  in  such  a  way  as  to  appeal 
to  all  consciousnesses,  it  is  not  an  easy  task.  All  earnest 
philosophers  have  faced  it,  and  I  want  now  to  give  a  notion 
of  how,  from  different  points  of  view,  this  definition  of  the 
conditions  of  knowledge  has  been  met.  This  fact  constitutes 
the  central  problem — that  knowledge  is  so  held  that  other 
minds  are  viewed  as  participating  in  it,  and  that  it  is  com- 
municable to  others.  Distinctively  intellectual  philosophy 
has  always  been  concerned  with  the  problem,  meeting  it  for 

1  Cf.  Bain,  p.  201,  sec.  7.  That  which  he  here  gives  as  the 
distinctive  feature  of  perception  of  a  sense-object  applies  equally  well 
to  all  objective  knowledge. 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  99 

the  most  part  from  the  side  of  the  chief  factor  or  factors  in 
knowledge. 

Here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  our  antithesis  of 
Rationalism  and  Experientialism,  or  Sensationalism  as,  in 
its  first  form,  the  latter  doctrine  may  be  called.  According 
to  the  former,  knowledge  is  wholly  explicable  from  Intellect 
or  Reason  (cow);  according  to  the  latter,  knowledge  is 
wholly  explicable  from  Sense  or  Sense-experience.  And 
according  to  a  third  position  knowledge  is  explicable  from 
both. 

The  antithesis  to  the  word  Rationalism  in  the  fullest  sense 
is  given  by  the  word  Sensationalism.  If  Rationalism  is  the 
doctrine  of  reason,  which  is  one  kind  of  mental  function, 
Sensationalism  is  the  doctrine  of  sensation,  another  kind 
of  mental  function.  Again,  experience  may  mean  bare 
sense-experience,  or  sense  ordered  by  reason  or  intellect  to 
form  knowledge.  Nevertheless  Experientialism  is  on  the 
whole  the  more  accurate  term,  since  no  theory  of  knowledge 
was  ever  pure  Sensationalism. 

Plato's  Rationalism. 

Plato  naturally  took  the  extreme  doctrine  of  Intellectualism, 
or  Rationalism.  Sense,  he  said,  is  only  a  hindrance  to 
knowledge ;  knowledge  involves  an  ignoring  of  sense.  Know- 
ledge is  the  grasping  of  ideas  with  the  intellect  which  never 
were  in  sense,  were  never  got  from  sense,  and  which  therefore 
the  mind  must  have  brought  with  it ;  it  consists  in  the  mind's 
possession  of  innate  ideas  originally.  (He  does  not  use  the 
word  'innate,'  but  he  teaches  the  doctrine.)  Plato  was 
a  poet  as  well  as  a  philosopher,  and  clothed  his  philosophical 
ideas  in  poetical  form.  Mythically  sometimes  and  mystically 
always  he  expresses  the  doctrine  of  knowledge  as  reminiscence 


ioo  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

of  ideas  not  formed  from  sense,  but  brought  from  a  state  of 
prior  existence.  In  a  previous  existence  men  had  converse 
with  Ideas.  Now  they  see  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  there 
was  a  time,  and  again  will  be,  when,  freed  from  matter  or 
sense,  man  will  see  face  to  face.  Plato's  theory  of  knowledge, 
then,  is  a  general  negation  of  the  import  of  sense — is  a 
denial  that  sense  can  be  sublimated  into  knowledge. 

This  tendency  has  been  reproduced  throughout  the  history 
of  thought,  especially  at  the  beginning  of  the  modern  period. 
Descartes,  though  he  takes  sense  as  a  factor  of  human  being, 
seeks  to  explain  knowledge  out  of  relation  to  sense,  and 
considers  it  apart  from  sense.  With  Rationalists  first  and 
last  the  burden  of  the  story  has  been  that  in  knowledge  there 
is  obviously  something  that  sense  can  give  no  account  of — > 
that  there  are  in  it  notions  out  of  all  relation  to  sense,  as  fo*r 
instance  '  Cause.'  Here  is  a  notion  necessary  to  our  know- 
ledge, yet  do  any  of  our  senses  give  us  an  idea  of  cause  as 
cause  ?  Obviously  not,  yet  we  know  what  cause  is.  '  Sub- 
stance '  is  another  such  notion.  We  come  to  know  by  sense 
this,  that,  or  the  other  affection  which  objects  are  said  to 
cause  in  us;  but  how  do  we  come  to  know  substance  as 
something  seemingly  apart  from  us  ? 

Hence  it  was  that  Plato  looked  for  some  other  source  to 
explain  knowledge,  and  found  one  so  fruitful  that  he  denied 
the  value  of  sense.  This  source  was  Reason.  Reason  knows 
by  way  of  ideas,  and  as  there  was  no  possible  account  he 
could  give  of  how  these  ideas  arose  in  us,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  imagine  that  we  are  carrying  on  in  this  life  a  life  that  has 
been  begun  before,  and  in  a  previous  stage  of  which  we  got 
our  ideas.  How  much  of  this  was  philosophy,  how  much 
only  poetry,  it  is  hard  to  say ;  but  we  get  out  of  the  Dialogues 
a  positive  doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas,  viz.  that  the  mind  comes 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  101 

into  the  world  with  a  certain  means  of  knowing  in  its  original 
constitution.  I,  according  to  this  view,  supply  for  myself  the 
idea  of  cause  by  the  constitution  of  my  mind. 

Aristotle  as  Conciliator. 

In  Plato's  time  the  opposite  doctrine  had  already  sprung 
up,  viz.  that  knowledge  is  only  sense  transformed.  Later  on 
this  found  pronounced  upholders  in  the  Epicureans,  the 
Stoics  and  some  of  the  Sceptics.  To  a  certain  extent  this 
antithesis  was  represented  and  headed  by  Aristotle,  yet  not  in 
extreme  opposition.  He  occupied  a  middle  ground,  acting  as 
a  kind  of  conciliator  between  the  Platonic  doctrine  and 
Experientialism.  Never  one-sided,  he  saw  the  truth  in  both 
aspects ;  hence  his  great  influence  on  succeeding  ages.  Those 
have  judged  him  superficially  who,  with  Coleridge,  have  said 
that  every  man  is  a  Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian.  The 
expression  that  mind  is  a  smooth  tablet  or  tabula  rasa  occurs 
in  Aristotle ',  but  he  is  no  Sensationalist.  He  does  not  say 
that  knowledge  can  be  explained  from  sense,  but  he  does 
say  that  it  cannot  be  explained  without  reference  to  sense. 
Neither  is  it  possible  to  make  him  out  to  be  an  Experientialist 
of  the  modern  type,  as  Grote  does.  There  are  passages  in 
Aristotle  which  must  be  interpreted  as  implying  independence 
in  the  intellect  as  a  factor  of  knowledge.  By  likening  the 
mind  to  a  tablet  written  on  by  experience  he  meant  only  that 
the  Nous  was  not  a  fixed  body  of  innate  principles,  but 
something  potential  which  can  be  developed  by  way  of 
experiential  realisation.  We  are  provided  with  such  con- 
ditions  of  thought    as   will   enable   us    to   frame    ideas   in 

1  De  Anima,  Bk.  Ill,  ch.  iv :  '  We  must  suppose,  in  short,  that  the 
process  of  thought  is  like  that  of  writing  on  a  writing-tablet  on  which 
noihlrg  is  yet  actually  written.'       E.  Wallace's  transl.      Infra,  p.  230. 


102  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

connexion  with  the  gradual  growth  of  our  experience l.  It 
is  surprising  how  Aristotle  had  begun  to  conceive  how  sense 
becomes  worked  up  by  certain  definite  laws  into  those  cogni- 
tions which  seem  furthest  removed  from  sense. 

Scholastic  Rationalism. 

Most  of  the  Schoolmen,  as  we  have  seen,  followed  Aristotle, 
but  assigned  perhaps  greater  predominance  than  he  did 
to  the  intellectual  factor,  and  were  apt  to  bring  in  '  innate 
ideas.'  Some  were  pure  Intellectualists,  declaring  sense  to 
be  of  no  account  for  knowledge.  The  greatest  of  them, 
Aquinas,  contended  for  the  importance  of  sense,  but  he  too 
admitted  innate  ideas  as  co-factors  in  knowledge. 

Bacon  outside  the  Controversy. 

p 

Bacon  is  of  no  importance  for  this  question.  He  is  a 
methodologist.  He  sought  for  a  •  method  of  discovery,'  but 
prefaced  it  by  no  psychological  or  critical  investigation  (I  use 
'critical'  here  in  the  Kantian  sense),  nor  did  he  view  the 
question  from  the  subjective  point  of  view  as  Descartes  did. 
Had  he  gone  into  the  question,  he  must  have  been  a 
Sensationalist.  He  speaks  of  sense  as  a  source  of  knowledge, 
but  he  was  no  metaphysician. 

Cartesian  Rationalism. 
Descartes  was  more  of  a  metaphysician  than  a  theorist  of 
knowledge.  He  made  no  attempt  to  give  a  detailed  theory 
of  knowledge,  nevertheless  the  philosophical  position  he  took 
up  has  influenced  thought  till  the  present  day.  To  him  as 
to  Plato  sense  is  the  antithesis  of  knowledge,  and  is  to  be 
discounted  and  banned  as  an  illusion  and  a  show.  He  fell 
back  upon  the  doctrine  that  we  have  innate  ideas  of  God, 

1  De  An.  Bk.  Ill,  ch.  iii. 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  103 

substance,  cause,  &c,  and  interpreted  it  in  a  definite  way. 
As  a  discoverer  in  mathematics  and  physics,  Descartes  came 
to  terms  with  sense.  As  a  metaphysician  he  revived  and 
maintained  the  pre-existing  doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas,  though 
in  later  life  he  modified  it.  He  distinguished  in  all  mental 
states  three  classes  of  ideas : — (1)  Innate,  (2)  Adventitious,  and 
(3)  Factitious  or  Imaginary  Ideas.  The  last  involve  a  definite 
mental  construction  that  can  be  traced.  Adventitious 
ideas  come  by  way  of  sense.  But  he  insists  that  there 
are  certain  definite  concepts  or  notions  which  are  in  no 
respect  adventitious,  but  are  imprinted  on  the  mind  from 
the  first  as  part  of  its  original  constitution.  Chief  among 
these  is  the  idea  of  God.  On  this  idea  he  lays  great  stress ; 
it  plays  an  important  part  in  his  whole  philosophy.  We 
know  what  we  mean  when  we  use  such  a  term,  yet  the  idea 
involves  no  element  of  sense. 

Intuition  and  Idea  in  Descartes. 

Another  word  which  Descartes  is  more  especially  inclined 
to  use  is  '  Intuition.'  Whenever  the  knowledge  which  he 
cannot  conceive  to  come  by  way  of  sense  assumes  the  form 
of  propositions,  of  the  truth  of  which  we  are  absolutely  sure, 
he  uses  this  term.  Through  his  initiative  it  has  come  to  be 
more  and  more  opposed  to  sense-experience,  and  thus 
diverted  from  its  original  meaning  of  inspection,  vision,  direct 
apprehension,  such  as  we  have  in  sense.  Some  philosophers 
distinguish  between  '  pure '  and  '  empirical '  intuition,  the 
latter  expressing  the  original  meaning.  We  shall  revert  to 
this  in  dealing  with  Kant.  The  student,  by  the  way,  should 
avoid  confounding  intuition  with  instinct — the  primitive 
power  of  conceiving  and  judging  with  the  primitive  tendency 
or  ability  to  perform  certain  acts,  unlearned  action,  or  action 


104  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

prompted  by  knowledge  that  is  not  got  by  experience.  There 
is  a  relation  between  the  two ;  intuitions  may  involve  activities ; 
instincts  may  be  used  with  reference  to  the  unlearned  know- 
ledge rather  than  the  actions;  but  there  is  an  approach  to 
a  philosophic  Malapropism  in  an  indiscriminate  use  of  the 
terms. 

Descartes'  use  of  the  term  'idea'  is  wider  than  that  of 
Plato;  he  applies  it  to  any  kind  of  conscious  experience. 
(His  use  of  '  thought '  (pense'e)  is  similar.)  He  even  uses 
'idea'  for  the  nervous  process  accompanying  sense-expe- 
rience. It  is  only  since  Hume,  who  contrasts  '  impressions ' 
and  'ideas,'  that  the  latter  much-abused  term  has  been 
restricted  to  a  synonym  for  representative  consciousness. 

Cartesianism  modified  already  in  Descartes.  * 

Descartes  then  admitted  that  sense  was  a  mode  of  mental 
experience  which  the  philosopher  must  account  for  as  entering 
into  some  cognitions,  viz.  Adventitious  Ideas ;  but  he  had  to 
assume  other  elements,  viz.  Innate  Ideas,  or  Intuitions, 
according  as  he  referred  to  their  primitive  character,  or  to 
the  immediate  certitude  characterising  them.  Extension, 
Number,  are  for  him  innate  ideas.  '  I  am  a  thinking  being '  is 
a  fundamental  intuition  ;  so  is  '  Out  of  nothing  nothing  can 
come',  and  '  A  cause  must  contain  at  least  as  much  reality 
as  its  effect.'  We  have  no  sensation  of  extension,  but  we 
interpret  our  sense-affections  as  coming  from  an  extended 
thing  by  means  of  our  idea  of  extension.  To  the  question, 
1  What  guarantee  have  we  that  the  idea  has  objective  validity  ? ' 
he  answered,  '  The  existence  of  a  veracious  God,  incapable 
of  deceiving  us.'  And  to  that  of  '  How  is  the  mind  cognisant 
of  these  ideas  ? '  he  said,  '  Mind  is  a  being  constantly  con- 
sciously  thinking.'     When   pushed   into    a   corner   by   the 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  105 

objection  that,  if  such  ideas  are  innate,  children  ought  to  be 
more  conscious  of  them  than  adults,  he  modified  his  position 
by  saying  that  the  mind  has  predispositions  to  innate  ideas. 
His  'Innate'  theory  is  really  a  protest  against  the  Sensa- 
tionalist position — a  protest  with  which  as  such  I  agree — and 
will  not  bear  direct  setting  out  here. 

Locke's  Experientialism. 

Locke,  who  really  began  the  English  philosophic  move- 
ment, thinks  in  relation  to  Descartes,  though  he  generally 
opposes  him.  The  first  book  of  his  Essay  is  devoted  to  a 
hostile  criticism  of  the  doctrine  of  Innate  Ideas,  all  know- 
ledge being  traced  from  experience.  Here  then  is  a  distinct 
counter-assertion.  Instead  of  the  assertion  that  the  nature 
and  community  of  knowledge  are  inexplicable  save  by  way 
of  ideas  implanted  in  the  mind,  and  in  all  minds  alike, 
together  with  a  theory  as  to  the  import  of  this  innate  knowing 
with  respect  to  all  minds,  a  theory  in  short  of  the  objectivity 
of  knowledge,  we  have  the  opposite  view,  that  the  mind 
comes  into  the  world  devoid  of  ideas  or  of  any  original 
means  of  interpreting  experience,  analogous  in  fact  to  a  wax 
tablet  ready  for  the  stylus — that  is  to  say,  with  a  capacity  for 
receiving  impressions  and  with  nothing  more.  Knowledge 
is  that  which  arises  in  the  mind  as  the  result  of  the  im- 
pressions imparted  by  experience. 

It  was  Locke  who  objected  that  if  there  were  innate  ideas 
and  principles  (intuitions  in  the  form  of  propositions),  then, 
according  to  Descartes'  axiom,  that  mind  does  not  exist  to 
the  extent  that  it  does  not  think,  every  one,  but  especially 
children,  would  be  always  conscious  of  them ;  whereas  such 
is  not  the  case;  indeed  it  would  seem  that  none  but 
Cartesian  philosophers  were  conscious  of  some  of  Descartes' 


106  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

innate  ideas  !  Locke  probably  did  not  know,  when  he  wrote, 
how  Descartes  had  (in  a  letter)  modified  his  theory  by 
admitting  predispositions.  But  Locke  used  the  figure  of  the 
tabula  rasa 1  in  a  much  more  dogmatic  sense  than  Aristotle. 
The  notion,  on  Locke's  own  line,  has  long  been  abandoned. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  Locke  by  the 
metaphor  meant  to  exclude  '  natural  faculties ' 2  or  '  natural 
tendencies  imprinted  in  the  minds  of  men ' 3.  It  is  merely  his 
strong  way  of  saying  that  without  actual  experience  (either 
that  which  comes  by  way  of  the  senses  or  that  which  he 
calls  '  Reflection ')  there  comes  to  pass  nothing  of  what  we 
call  knowledge.  In  this  point  of  view  he  need  not  be 
supposed  to  exclude  anything  that  later  inquirers  contend 
for  under  the  head  of  Inherited  Predisposition.  He  does 
not  assert  that  all  tablets  alike  may  be  indifferently  written 
upon,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  deny  that  all  human  minds  are 
fitted  to  receive  impressions  in  certain  like  ways.  He  may 
however  be  charged,  by  his  way  of  putting  the  case,  with 
throwing  out  of  view  this  important  element  of  a  complete 
theory  of  knowledge,  viz.  that  there  is  a  certain  common 
limit  of  knowing  for  the  race  and  a  certain  personal  range 
for  the  individual,  both  predetermined  in  a  manner  that 
admits  of  investigation  (whether  by  Kant's  way  of  analysis 
or  by  the  evolutionist  historic  procedure). 

Locke's  whole  case  against  innate  knowledge  has  reference 
to  the  supposed  f  universal  consent '  respecting  it  in  all  men 
and  its  express  manifestation  in  the  consciousness  of  each. 
He  seeks  to  show  that  no  principle,  speculative  or  practical, 
that  has  ever  been  held  innate,  is  as  a  matter  of  fact 
expressly  recognised   and  allowed  for  by  all  mankind,  as 

1  Essay,  Bk.  II,  ch.  i.  2. 
a  Ibid.  I,  ii.  1.  s  Ibid.  I,  iii.  3. 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  107 

it  must  be  if  innate.  The  uniformity  of  knowledge  in 
different  men,  so  far  as  it  exists,  he  explains  by  their  being 
exposed  to  the  same  experience,  by  their  having  the  same 
'natural  faculties,'  and  by  their  communication  with  one 
another1.  Thus  he  does  not  wholly  overlook  the  influence 
of  the  social  relation. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  Locke's  polemic  against  innate 
knowledge — however  he  fails  to  see  what  really  was  contended 
for  under  that  shibboleth  (viz.  that  the  fabric  of  knowledge, 
for  any  mind,  is  never  explicable  from  incidental  experience 
simply) — it  must  be  pronounced  good  and  possible  against 
the  doctrine  as  it  had  till  then  been  maintained ;  and  this 
is  shown  by  the  necessity  laid  upon  Leibniz  to  shift  ground 
and  maintain  the  position  in  quite  a  new  way.  Thus  a  real 
advance  in  philosophy  was  rendered  necessary. 

Subsequent  Mutual  Convergence. 

While  Descartes  maintained  the  extreme  position  of 
Rationalism,  and  while  we  appear  to  find  an  extreme  counter- 
assertion  of  Sensationalism  by  Locke,  what  we  discover 
on  tracing  the  course  of  subsequent  philosophy  is  mainly  in 
the  way  of  reconciliation  and  mutual  approximation.  The 
Rationalists  recognise  sense  as  an  indispensable  factor  of 
what  we  call  knowledge,  the  Sensationalists  meanwhile  pro- 
gressively deepen  and  broaden  their  conception  of  what 
enters  into  or  is  experience.  The  dogmatic  assertion  of 
innate  ideas  died  slain  by  Locke's  Essay,  or  at  least  it  only 
lingered  on  here  and  there  down  to  our  own  times.  Leibniz, 
who  was  most  distinctly  a  Rationalist,  finding  knowledge  in- 
explicable from  anything  we  can  call  external  experience, 
never  asserted  that  the  mind  comes  into  the  world  with  innate 

1  See  especially  Essay  I,  iii.  §  22  ff. 


108  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

ideas,  but  declared  it  has  only  predispositions,  aptitudes,  as 
means  of  interpreting  what  comes  to  it  by  way  of  sense — a 
notion  which  shows  a  distinct  advance  towards  an  appreciation 
of  the  other  side.  Ideas  were  only  implicit  in  the  infant  mind 
as  a  statue  of  Hercules  might  b,e  said  to  be  implicit  in  a 
block  of  marble.  Leibniz's  theory  of  what  really  enters  into 
knowledge  was  based  on  his  theory  of  substance.  Descartes 
had  expressed  the  distinction  between  mind  and  matter  as 
between  substances  the  whole  character  of  which  can  be 
expressed  in  thinking,  and  substances  the  whole  character  of 
which  can  be  expressed  in  extension.  Leibniz  gave  up  this 
dualism,  and  allowed  the  existence  of  one  substance  only,  the 
reality  of  which  lay  neither  in  thinking  nor  in  extension. 
Trying  to  get  a  word  deeper  than  either,  he  called  the  ground 
of  its  reality  active  force,  and  the  one  substance  a  system  of" 
monads,  or  mental  unitary  beings.  Not  all  have  a  self-con- 
scious existence,  and  those  which  have  do -not  have  it  at  every 
moment  of  their  existence.  Mind  appears  at  different  grades 
throughout  the  universe,  from  the  Deity  down  to  inanimate 
objects — appears,  that  is  to  say,  as  capable  of  all  degrees  of 
subjective  apprehension,  from  full  self-conscious  apperception 
to  semi-  or  sub-  consciousness  and  down  to  unconsciousness. 
Hence  arose  the  theory  of  latent  mental  modifications, 
springing  originally  from  Locke's  objection  to  Descartes' 
definition  of  mind  as  something  constantly  self-conscious. 

Leibniz  and  Locke. 

In  defining  his  own  theory  of  knowledge,  Leibniz  took  up 
the  formula  of  the  Sensationalists  : — Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod 
non  prius  fuerii  in  sensu,  and  gave  it  a  turn  noteworthy  and 
original  by  adding  nisi  ipse  intelleclus.  '  Except  the  intellect 
itself.'     By  this  alone,  he  claimed,  do  we  possess  necessary 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  109 

knowledge,  necessary  truth.  Some  truths  are  merely  truths  of 
fact ;  others  are  necessary  truths.  We  know  sometimes  that 
1  S  is  P,'  but  sometimes  we  know  that  '  S  mast  be  P.*  And 
he  said,  as  against  Locke,  that,  while  we  can  account  for 
any  mere  assertion  of  fact  from  experience,  to  say  that 
anything  •  must  be '  is  not  explicable  from  any  kind  of 
experience.  Locke,  on  the  other  hand,  with  never  so  blank 
a  tablet,  found  it  necessary  to  assume  beyond  sense  much 
else,  which  he  called  faculties  of  analysing,  compounding, 
and  the  like.  Experience  for  him  was  either  external  or 
internal,  i.e.  either  Sense  or  Reflexion,  meaning  by  Sense 
only  the  five  passive  senses,  or  modes  of  passive  affection. 
What  then  is  Reflexion  ?  Consciousness  of  the  fact  of 
perceiving,  imagining,  &c.  To  use  modern  phraseology — 
there  is  an  order  of  objective  experience  and  an  order  of 
subjective  experience :  this  expresses  Locke's  meaning. 
Knowledge,  he  found,  was  altogether  made  up  by  experience 
of  Sense  and  Reflexion.  But  he  has  no  definite  idea  how 
these  come  together  and  combine.  Compared  with  Leibniz's 
profound  psychological  insight,  Locke  must  be  charged  with 
superficiality,  with  inability  to  apprehend  the  complexity  of 
the  subject  he  sets  himself  to  deal  with. 

Leibniz,  however,  by  reason  of  his  metaphysical  start,  is 
in  constant  danger  of  diverting  real  psychological  facts 
into  supports  for  questionable  metaphysical  positions.  The 
psychological  fact  that  conscious  life  is  composed  of  elements 
multitudinous  in  number  and  of  every  degree  of  intensity 
may  be,  should  be,  recognised  quite  apart  from  the  meta- 
physical hypothesis  of  monads. 

Leibniz,  while  he  does  not  deny  that,  not  only  truths  of 
fact,  but  even  necessary  truths  come  into  conscious  view 
only  upon  the  occasions  supplied  by  sense,  is  disposed  to 


no  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

lay  greater  stress,  for  the  explanation  of  knowledge,  upon 
that  which  the  mind  must  be  in  itself  in  order  to  be  affected 
so.  And  as  even  the  most  occasional  cognition  may  be 
viewed  in  relation  to  the  mind's  inherent  capacity,  he  con- 
tends for  innate  knowledge  in  a  sense  which,  if  it  departs 
from  the  older  view  against  which  Locke  contends,  is  not  in 
the  least  excluded  by  anything  that  Locke  advances. 

The  Question  advanced  by  a  Step. 

Locke  thus  appears  after  all  as  a  masked  Rationalist.  He 
merely  opened  up  the  Experientialist  side  of  the  question, 
and  it  might  well  be  said  that  Leibniz  was  only  giving  a 
definite  expression  to  Locke's  implicit  admission,  when  he 
insisted  on  '  intellectus  ipse '  as  that  which  had  not  its  origin 
in  sense.  It  was  impossible  that  the  question  could  remain 
as  Locke  left  it.  Advance  was  necessary,  or  else  a  falling 
back  on  Descartes. 

When  we  come  to  Berkeley  we  shall  see  {infra,  Lect.  XVI) 
that  his  Principles  are  directed  against  Locke's  dogmatising 
on  matter.  Still  Locke  it  was  who  first  began  to  transform 
Philosophy  into  Theory  of  Knowledge.  Philosophy  with 
Descartes  was  Theory  of  Being;  with  Locke  it  was  so  only 
secondarily.  And  more:  his  philosophy,  if  not  psychologically 
based,  is  at  least  penetrated  through  and  through  with  the 
psychological  spirit.  In  Descartes'  science  we  get  some 
good  physics,  but  of  any  psychological  understanding  we 
get  next  to  no  trace.  Between  his  work  on  vision  and  that 
of  Berkeley  there  is  all  the  difference  between  fancy  and 
science.  What  then  enabled  Berkeley  in  1709  to  do  that 
which  Descartes  of  far  greater  scientific  and  philosophical 
ability  had  been  unable  to  do  in  1637  ?  I  can  assign  no  other 
reason  than  the  appearance  in  1690  of  Locke's  Essay.     For 


XL]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  in 

whatever  Spinoza's  influence  on  the  time  may  have  been,  he 
had  no  influence  upon  Berkeley. 

Locke's  ideas  of  Sense  are  crude,  but  he  compelled  all 
subsequent  philosophy  to  admit  that  into  the  fabric  of  know- 
ledge Sense  enters  as  a  distinct  constituent,  and  that  there  is 
no  explanation  of  knowledge  possible  which  does  not  take 
account  of  Sense  as  a  factor.  What  else  there  is  in  knowledge 
beside  Sense  philosophers  have  since  sought  to  make  out. 
The  three  chief  verdicts  are  those  of  the  Common  Sense  or 
Scottish  School,  the  Critical  School,  and  the  Associationist 
School.     These  we  will  proceed  to  consider. 


For  Lecture  XII  read : — 
Hamilton,  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  XX  and  XXXVIII. 
Hamilton,    Works    of  Reid,   with    Dissertations    by    Hamilton — 
Note  A,  '  On  the  Philosophy  of  Common  Sense.' 


LECTURE  XII. 

THE  NATURE   OF   KNOWLEDGE.      AFTER   LOCKE. 
Associationism. 

The  Associationist  doctrine  has  developed  along  two  lines 
of  thought,  both  of  which  may  be  said  to  have  arisen  in 
Locke — one  through  Berkeley  to  Hume,  the  other  through 
Hartley  to  the  Mills.  Its  theory  of  knowledge  is  that  know- 
ledge is  explicable  from  the  elements  of  sense-experience 
united  through  the  bonds  (laws)  of  association,  such  con- 
nexions being  made  within  the  life-experience  of  the 
individual.  Knowledge  is  thus  an  individual  construction, 
and  is  a  compound  resulting  from  the  fusion,  under  certain 
laws,  of  sense-elements.  It  is  the  product  of  sense  and 
association.  An  Associationist  must  maintain  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  mind  that  could  not  be  developed  by  the 
individual  for  himself.  He  may  be  helped  to  his  special 
associations  by  others,  but  he  could  do  it  all  for  himself. 
This  is  the  purest  form  of  Experientialism.  Locke  himself 
was  an  Associationist,  not  explicitly  but  by  implication. 
Associationists  have  not  worked  out  a  consistent  Theory  of 
Knowledge,  but  they  do  make  a  real  attempt  to  begin  at  the 
beginning. 


xil]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  113 

Locke  and  Berkeley. 

Locke's  ideas  of  sense  and  of  the  construction  of  knowledge 
are,  as  we  have  seen,  very  crude ;  nevertheless  he  first  opened 
the  question  of  thepsychological  origin  of  knowledge.  Berkeley, 
Locke's  immediate  successor,  marks  a  distinct  advance  along 
this  line.  He  began  a  definite  psychological  inquiry,  while 
he  also  took  a  philosophical  position  in  regard  to  the  know- 
ledge of  matter,  which  is  at  least  more  circumspect  than  that 
of  Locke.  He  based  his  philosophy  on  his  psychology ;  yet 
he  was  not  set  philosophising  because  he  was  a  psychologist, 
but  because,  as  a  theologian,  he  wished  to  get  rid  of  the, 
to  him,  pernicious  effects  of  Materialism.  Thenceforward 
philosophy  and  psychology  really  began  to  have  a  separate 
history.  Berkeley  got  away  from  Locke's  notion  of  the 
five  senses  as  barely  passive  ;  and  further,  he  began  that 
definite  reference  to  a  principle  or  principles  of  intellectual 
synthesis  without  which  it  is  hopeless  to  explain  knowledge. 
Associationism  is  traced  to  him  though  he  does  not  use 
the  word.  His  theory  of  knowledge  bears  more  especially 
on  our  third  problem — the  perception  of  an  external  world. 

Hume. 

Hume  not  only  carried  out  further  Locke's  theory  of 
knowledge,  but  put  the  question  into  such  a  shape  as  to 
rouse  the  strongest  opposition  and  so  bring  about  a  great 
advance  in  thought.  In  regard  to  the  cognition  of  extension, 
Hume  is  behind  Berkeley  and  not  superior  to  Locke.  But 
he  was  beyond  both  in  his  statement  of  the  formal  principles 
of  knowledge.  He  proceeds  wholly  upon  Locke's  individual- 
istic view  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  developed  knowledge 
of  any  mind  which  is  not  explicable  from  the  (incidental) 


ii4  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

experience  of  that  mind ;  and  expresses  this  (by  a  modi- 
fication of  Locke's  language)  in  the  oft-repeated  formula, 
that  whenever  we  '  really '  have  any  idea  there  is  some 
assignable  impression  from  which  it  is  derived — of  which 
it  is  the  copy.  By  thus  distinguishing  idea  from  impression, 
he  gives  greater  precision  to  the  psychological  data  which 
he  assumes  in  common  with  Locke.  But  further,  when 
Locke,  in  order  to  account  for  the  developed  complex  of 
knowledge,  is  content  to  assume  faculties  of  'abstracting,' 
'compounding'  and  the  like,  Hume  formulates  definite 
principles  of  association  under  which  the  synthesis  takes 
place  : — (i)  Contiguity,  (2)  Similarity,  (3)  Association  of 
Cause  and  Effect.  He  does  not  work  out  the  last  principle 
at  all,  nor  the  two  others  at  all  fully.  But  not  in  regard  to 
these  can  we  gauge  the  importance  of  Hume.  There  are 
two  facts  in  cognition  that  he  set  himself  to  account  for — 
knowledge  of  substance  and  knowledge  of  causation.  He 
was  led  to  the  question  of  cause  from  the  prominence  in 
modern  science  of  the  inquiry,  '  What  is  the  cause  of  what  ? ' 
Berkeley  already  and  the  Cartesians  before  him  (e.  g.  Male- 
branche)  had  seen  that  what  science  was  concerned  with  was 
the  establishment  of  uniformity  in  phenomena.  But  Hume 
went  so  far  as  to  say,  that  if  any  phenomenon  is  by  us  con- 
nected with  any  other  phenomenon  in  Nature,  it  is  because 
of  the  customary  sequence  of  experience.  A  subjective  bond  is 
thereby  established — and  that  is  all,  although  through  'custom' 
one  phenomenon  comes  to  be  considered  as  the  objective 
'  cause '  of  the  other.  Thus  he  decries  knowledge,  at  least 
from  the  Rationalist  point  of  view.  While  his  Treatise  of 
Human  Nature  contains  an  almost  complete  theory  of  know- 
ledge, while  he  vaguely  but  distinctly  recognises  intellectual 
elaboration   of    sense-data    arranged   by    'Abstraction,'   he 


xil]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  115 

stunned  the  philosophic  mind  of  the  century  by  showing 
that  all  previous  investigation  had,  so  to  speak,  led  up  to 
a  dead  wall — that  Locke's  Experientialism,  logically  carried 
out,  landed  philosophy  in  scepticism.  Besides  his  Individual- 
ism, his  Particularism  (i.  e.  that  everything  complex  or 
general  has  to  be  made  out  of  particular  elements)  is  very 
pronounced  as  put  in  the  formula  which  he  is  constantly 
referring  to  : — 'All  ideas  which  are  different  are  separable' 
(i.  e.  have  somehow  to  be  brought  together  if  they  appear  in 
one  mature  consciousness  as  conjoined). 

Hartley. 

Hume's  contemporary,  Hartley,  was  independent  of  him, 
but  a  follower  of  Locke.  He  was  the  first  to  formulate  the 
law  of  Contiguous  Association  as  accounting  sufficiently, 
without  other  laws  of  association,  for  intellectual  synthesis. 
Berkeley  did  not  formulate  any  such  laws;  Hume  did,  as 
we  have  seen,  but  he  did  not  apply  them.  When  later 
Associalionists  (the  Mills  and  Professor  Bain)  faced  the 
problem  of  knowledge,  they  worked  with  reference  to  Hartley 
and  not  to  Hume's  laws  of  association.  Hartley  was  the 
first  who  distinctly  asked  how  a  multitude  of  sensations, 
which  for  us  are  discretes,  come  to  be  fused,  or  to  coalesce 
into  that  coherent  appearance  of  an  object  with  a  variety 
of  qualities  which  expresses  what  our  experience  really  is. 
It  is,  he  said,  by  this  one  associative  principle.  Thinkers 
before  him,  from  Aristotle  onwards,  had  used  association 
only  in  accounting  for  the  imaginative  life  or  representative 
experience.  Hartley  was  the  first  to  employ  it  in  explaining 
the  synthesis  of  sensations.  He  did  not  give  a  complete 
exposition  of  this  theory,  or  analyse  sufficiently  the  elements 
of  sense,  but  he  fiist  started  the  Associationist  method. 


n6  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Brown. 

Thomas  Brown  was  a  strong  Associationist,  thinking  with 
ultimate  relation  to  Locke,  but  with  modifications  due  to 
the  influence  of  the  French  Sensationalists,  Destutt  de  Tracy 
and  others.  They  first  laid  hold  decisively  on  '  muscular 
sense,'  a  discovery  of  great  importance  in  philosophic  theories 
of  extension.  To  this  subject  Brown's  lectures  were  largely 
devoted,  and  to  it  we  shall  return.  Brown  used  Hartley's 
theory  of  association  most  earnestly,  but  was  repelled  by  the 
latter's  introduction  of  the  physiological  theory  of  vibrations. 

/.  5.  Mill. 
It  is  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Professor  Bain  who,  as  inheritors 
of  the  Sensationalist  tradition  of  the  eighteenth  century,  have 
set  up  the  formulated  theory  of  knowledge,  both  psychological 
and  philosophical,  known  as  Associationism.  The  latter 
gi/es  better  data  for  a  true  theory,  especially  in  regard  to 
external  perception;  the  former  is  the  better  systematiser. 
In  my  judgment  their  Associationism,  while  it  is  an  approxi- 
mation to  a  theory  of  knowledge,  comes  evidently  short. 
However  important  are  the  factors  brought  out  by  Mill,  he 
just  fails  to  solve  the  problem.  He  declares  that  a  number 
of  the  subjective  experiences,  had  by  an  individual  human 
being,  become  for  him  aggregated  according  to  certain  laws 
(of  association),  and  that  these  aggregated  appearances  can 
come  to  assume  the  form  of  knowledge  for  the  individual 
and — since  it  is  knowledge — to  be  objective  or  valid  for  all. 
But  it  is  just  this  last  point  that  he  does  not  account  for. 
Our  knowledge,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  coherent  system  of  fact 
and  relation  held  in  common  by  me  and  equally  by  others. 
This  objectivity  is  the  distinctive  constituent  of  knowledge, 
yet  M'U  never  satisfactorily  accounts  for  it — never  gets  out 


XII.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  117 

of  the  charmed  circle,  the  sphere  of  the  subjective.  No 
doubt  this  is  the  right  way  to  begin,  but  it  is  the  wrong  way 
to  end  if  we  want  to  give  an  account  of  knowledge  as  the 
common  property  of  all  men.  Mill  never  gets  off  psycho- 
logical ground.  Now  I  am  in  sympathy  with  Associationism 
as  psychology  only.  Mill's  psychology  is  rather  defective. 
He  borrows  from  Professor  Bain  without  comprehending 
him  properly.  However,  Mill's  shortcomings  in  framing 
a  philosophical  theory  of  knowledge  do  not  detract  from  his 
great  philosophical  merit  in  his  theory  of  general  knowledge, 
viz.  his  logic.  It  is  as  a  logician  that  he  is  effective,  rather 
than  as  an  epistemologist — not  that  I  always  go  with  him  in 
his  logic.  In  this  he  gives  an  account  of  knowledge  in  a 
constructive  spirit  that  is  very  different  from  the  destructive 
spirit  of  Hume.  Living  in  a  scientific  age,  Mill  attempted 
to  set  up  a  fundamental  theory  of  positive  science  involved 
in  all  the  special  sciences.  But  he  does  not  explain  how  we 
come  to  know  the  world  as  consisting  of  a  number  of  things, 
of  bodies  and  minds.  He  works  from  the  phenomenal  point 
of  view  and  from  that  of  individual  experience.  He  tries 
to  show  how  the  individual  experiences  of  the  mind  can 
become  associated  so  as  to  enable  one  man  to  ask  another 
to  accept  them  as  valid. 

Even  as  an  inquiry  of  positive  science  Mill's  work  is 
derective.  From  one  point  of  view  his  positive  theory  may 
be  called  no  less  sceptical  than  that  of  Hume.  Jevons's 
Principles   of  Science   is   more  complete   though    still   less 

philosophical. 

Bain. 

Professor  Bain  has  been  the  most  important  contributor 
to  psychology  in  England  in  this  century.  His  pre-eminence 
extends  over  the  whole  field  of  psychology  as  distinct  from 


u8  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

philosophy.  Towards  the  general  theory  of  knowledge  he 
docs  not  contribute  any  advance  on  Mill  and  the  Associationists 
generally.  He  works  from  the  individual  point  of  view.  He 
makes  but  little  attempt  to  apply  the  laws  of  association  to 
cognition  as  such.  He  does  not  ask,  e.  g.  how  we  can 
explain  the  concieteness  of  an  object  on  the  principles  of 
association,  although  he  gives  a  careful  statement  of  those 
laws.  Yet  he  posits  an  element  of  personal  initiative  for  the 
explanation  of  developed  consciousness;  he  tacitly  denies 
the  tabula  rasa  hypothesis.  In  the  mature  consciousness  he 
finds  an  element  not  derived  from  the  sense-experience  of 
the  individual  because  he  considers  mental  life  in  connexion 
with  the  nervous  system.  It  is  recognised  that  the  individual 
comes  into  the  world  organised  up  to  a  certain  point ;  and  i 
this  fact,  taken  into  account  on  the  bodily  side,  has  correspond- 
ing to  it  a  certain  pre-determination  of  conscious  life. 

The  '  Common  Sense '  School. 
Reid,  Stewart  and  Hamilton  put  forth  their  epistemological 
view  in  antithesis  to  Hume's  theory  of  knowledge.  The 
first  declared  that,  while  sense  was  of  account  for  knowledge, 
knowledge  could  not  be  explained  out  of  the  elements 
assumed  by  the  Associationist  doctrines.  So  he  fell  back 
on  other  assumptions.  What  struck  him  in  the  general 
theory  of  knowledge,  as  distinct  from  the  special  problem 
of  the  cognition  of  an  external  world,  was  the  community 
of  knowledge — was  the  fact  that  while  there  is  more  than 
sense  in  knowledge,  this  '  more '  is  had  by  all,  cultivated  or 
uncultivated,  young  or  old.  This  he  attributed  to  the  sub- 
jective factor  of  common  sense.  Now  common  sense  in 
psychology  is  a  name  for  organic  or  general  sensation l. 
1  V.  Element*  of  lJ*j  ihologj,  p.  62.— Ed. 


xii.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  119 

In  popular  parlance  it  is  the  faculty  of  ready  judgment, 
mother  wit.  Reid  employed  it  thus: — We  are  so  con- 
stituted that  we  interpret  our  experience  alike.  When  we 
are  affected  through  our  senses,  we  refer  those  sensible 
impressions  to  a  thing  or  substance  of  which  they  are 
qualities,  by  a  fundamental  principle  of  judgment  or 
common  sense.  If  we  interrogate  consciousness  we  reach 
this  ultimate  and  objectively  valid  principle,  beyond  which 
we  cannot  reason. 

This  was  a  valuable  idea,  but  Reid's  method  was  hap- 
hazard, his  assertions  too  readily  made,  his  elementary 
principles  too  easily  found.  His  '  common  sense  '  expresses 
rather  the  result,  than  the  means,  of  the  determination  of  our 
impressions.  It  Was  a  kind  of  revival  of  the  old  doctrine  of 
innate  ideas,  although  accompanied  by  a  much  more  elabo- 
rate analysis  of  knowledge  than  any  preceding  Rationalists 
had  given.  We  may  not  agree  with  him,  nevertheless  his 
system  was  an  advance  on  Locke  and  Hume,  if  only  because 
it  made  other  thinkers  more  circumspect. 

Dugald  Stewart  carried  on  the  doctrine  on  the  same  lines. 
Knowledge  could  not  be  explained  without  the  assumption 
of  certain  fundamental  principles  of  belief  which  determine 
the  objective  validity  of  knowledge. 

Hamilton. 

Reid,  Stewart  and  Hamilton  are  the  three  typical  ex- 
ponents of  faculty-psychology.  The  term  'faculty'  is  very 
crudely  used  by  the  first  two,  but  definitely  by  the  last. 
Hamilton,  while  he  justifies  his  own  use  of  the  word  by  saying 
that  it  is  merely  a  way  of  massing  together  a  number  of  mental 
phenomena,  points  out,  as  against  his  predecessors,  that  the 
discrepancies  in  their  use  of  it  show  a  want  of  principle 


120  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

and  are  essentially  indeterminate.  Reid,  e.g.  is  redundant  in 
making  two  distinct  powers  of  Conception  and  Abstraction. 
He  and  Stewart  pretend  to  fulfil  the  whole  function  of  psycho- 
logy, viz.  explanation,  whereas  they  only  describe.  For  the 
only  scientific  mode  of  explanation  is  the  bringing  phenomena 
under  laws.  Explaining  facts  by  faculties  is  essentially  un- 
scientific, for  we  must  ascribe  a  quasi-independence  to  these 
faculties.  Even  Hamilton,  in  spite  of  his  having  guarded 
himself,  falls  into  using  the  word  as  if  for  so  many  mutually 
independent  powers,  as  though — as  some  one  has  said — he 
were  dealing  with  European  Powers.  Psychology,  as  a  rule, 
begins  where  Reid  and  Stewart  leave  off.  Still  for  Hamilton 
I  claim  a  certain  amount  of  exemption  from  blame.  He 
is  guided,  moreover,  as  to  much  of  his  scheme  by  a 
scientific  principle :  he  goes  from  simple  to  complex.  The 
most  salient  feature  in  his  classification  is  that  each  faculty  is 
explicable  from  the  preceding.  His  scheme  is  better  than 
a  mere  string  of  beads.  But  in  it  psychology  and  philosophy 
become  hopelessly  confused. 

His  scheme  divides  intellect  into  six  faculties,  in  which  we 
find  a  close  correspondence  with  our  own  arrangement : — 

(i)  Presentative  a)  External     .     .     .  Perception. 
,,  (6)  Internal.     .     \ 

(2)  Conservative Representative 

(3)  Reproductive Imagination. 

(4)  Representative ) 

(5")  Elaborative  or  Discursive     .     .     .  Conception,  Thought. 
(6)  Regulative '. 

1  I  am  not  disposed  to  reject  the  prominence  given  to  (aN  apart 
from  (3I  and  (4).  Decidedly  some  retain  well,  but  cannot  at 
will  reproduce  equally  well.  I  could  rather  object  to  separating  (3) 
and  (4).  The  fifth  is  the  most  instructive  to  study.  I  commend  his 
emphatic  use  of  the  word  'thought'  as  meaning  re- representative 


xil]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  121 

Hamilton  confuses  Psychology  and  Philosophy. 

Now  here  in  faculties  (2)  to  (5)  Hamilton  is  on  psycho- 
logical ground  ;  in  (1)  and  (6)  he  trespasses  on  philosophy. 
For  instance,  his  first  faculty  he  defines  as  that  by  which  we 
have  (a)  consciousness  of  objects,  (5)  consciousness  of  self. 
This  is  more  than  we  undertook  to  find  in  intellection ;  it  is 
cognition  in  the  fullest  sense.  Under  the  guise  of  psychology  he 
is  already  dealing  with  the  problem  of  knowledge.  Now  it  is 
hardly  fair  to  speak  as  though  Hamilton  professed  to  give  us 
a  work  on  psychology,  when  for  his  title  he  has  Metaphysics. 
But  we  must  charge  him  with  not  making  the  necessary 
distinction,  any  more  than  Professor  Bain  does  in  another 
direction,  between  psychology  and  philosophy.  Here  he 
certainly  does  not  pass  gradually  from  simple  to  complex. 
And  the  matter  is  made  worse  by  the  use  of  the  apparently 
very  simple  term  Presentative.  He  over-simplifies  in  one 
way,  over-complicates  in  another.  He  himself,  when  in  a 
psychological  mood,  sees  that  Presentation  is  but  a  starting- 
point.  I  deny  (1)  that  we  can  start  from  perception  of  object 
and  self,  (2)  that  there  is  purely  presentative  intellection. 
The  profit  to  the  reader  in  those  lectures  on  the  first  faculty 
lies  in  the  historical  information;  otherwise  there  is  much 
that  is  confusing  and  inconsistent.  It  was  not  a  fortunate 
start. 

Then  as  to  the  sixth.  Till  this  is  exercised,  till  the  results 
of  the  other  five  have  been  operated  upon,  regulated,  by  it, 

intellection  only,  and  have  sought  to  establish  in  the  traditions  of 
English  psychology  this  usage,  brought  in  first  by  Hamilton  from 
Kant.  'Discursive'  too  is  a  valuable  old  term,  first  showing  the 
function  of  thought  as  a  '  ranging  over'  in  order  to  bring  together. 
He  calls  this  faculty  also  '  understanding,'  as  opposed  to  reason  or 
ratio,  his  sixth  faculty. 


122  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

you  have  not,  according  to  Hamilton,  got  knozuledge.  Not 
professedly  does  he  here  pass  again  over  to  philosophy ;  he 
thinks  it  is  all  psychology.  Yet  he  himself  denies  that  this 
is  a  faculty  in  the  same  sense  as  the  others.  He  calls  it  by 
a  Latin  name,  as  though  English  were  not  good  enough  for 
it — the  locus  principiorum — nest  or  aggregate  of  principles 
which  have  to  be  made  manifest  as  involved  in  knowledge. 

Hamilton's  'Reason.'' 

What  does  he  mean  by  this  Regulative  Faculty,  or  the 
Reason  ?  '  Regulative '  is  a  term  he  borrowed  from  Kant, 
though  not  exactly  the  Kantian  usage  along  with  it.  He 
did  not  use  it  as  I  do  to  describe  the  function  of  such 
philosophical  doctrines  as  Logic  or  Ethics,  his  generic 
term  for  such  functioning  being  Nomology  (as  distinct  from 
Phenomenology).  By  '  Regulative '  he  meant  ordering  or 
interpreting  or  conditioning.  Certain  principles  constitute 
so  many  forms  or  conditions  under  which  what  we  perceive, 
remember,  think,  &c.  comes  to  be  held  as  knowledge.  For 
instance,  by  the  action  of  the  principle  of  Substance  we 
interpret  what  is  presented  in  consciousness  as  qualities 
cohering  in  a  substance.  And  again,  the  flow  of  our 
representations  does  not  give  us  cognition  till  they  are 
ordered  by  the  principle  of  Causality  as  effects  of  certain 
causes.  Not  content  herewith,  he  endeavours  to  reduce  all 
principles  to  one — the  principle  of  the  Conditioned. 

Note  how  he  had  already  begged  the  sixth  faculty  to 
expound  the  first. 

We  have  now  seen  what  the  Common  Sense  school  found 
wanting  in  the  Associationist  doctrine,  and  how  they  sought 
to  supply  it.  In  connexion  herewith  they  tend  to  use  belief 
as  being  the  foundation  of  knowledge,  those   fundamental 


xii.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy  123 

principles  of  Common  Sense  or  Reason  being  held  in  the 
mind  in  the  form  of  belief. 

No  student  will  lose  his  lime  if  he  study  Hamilton.  What- 
ever his  faults,  his  work  is  unsurpassed  for  instructive, 
stimulative  value.  He  really  and  consciously  exhausted 
intellect  no  less  than  is  done  in  Mr.  Spencer's  scheme  and 
my  own.  Whereas  with  the  classifications  of  Reid  and 
Stewart  we  might  ask  why  they  stop  where  they  do. 


For  Lecture  XIII  read  : — 
Mill,  Logic,  Bk.  II,  ch.  v.  vi — '  Of  Demonstration  and  Necessary 
Truths.' 


LECTURE   XIII. 

THE   NATURE   OF   KNOWLEDGE.      CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

Kant. 

Kant  was  struck  and  even  oppressed  by  the  negative  result 
of  Hume's  analyses.  It  seemed  to  him  that,  if  Hume  was 
right,  no  explanation  of  even  the  plain  facts  of  science 
was  possible.  He  was  prepared  to  accept  Hume  against  the 
older  doctrines  of  metaphysics — Platonic  realism,  innate 
ideas,  and  so  forth — but  he  felt  that  there  was  that  in  know- 
ledge which  Hume  had  not  touched — that  his  negation  of 
knowledge  was  wrong,  in  that  he  had  not  faced  the  whole 
problem.  So  he  sought  in  the  Krilik  of  Pure  Reason  to 
work  out  a  positive  theory  of  knowledge  and  to  destroy 
scepticism,  not  by  mere  dogmatism  like  Descartes  and  Leibniz, 
but  by  putting  the  whole  of  knowledge  on  a  new  footing, 
and  so  to  find  a  via  media  between  the  Experientialism  of 
Locke  run  out  into  the  scepticism  of  Hume,  and  the 
Rationalism  of  Descartes  and  Leibniz. 

Kant's  Inquiry  into  the  Constituents  of  Knowledge. 

He  said  that  we  must  first  settle  what  enters  into  know- 
ledge. That  sense  is  of  account  for  knowledge  he  takes  for 
granted.  Our  knowledge  is  of  sensible  things.  Not  that  we 
have  not  moral  convictions  of  something  beyond,  but  know- 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  125 

ledge  proper  always  contains  sense-elements.  Sense  itself 
does  not  explain  knowledge.  Knowledge  is  not  simply  sense 
transformed,  but  a  resultant  of  certain  elements  a  posteriori 
(empirically  given)  wrought  up  with  certain  other  a  priori 

elements. 

A  priori  and  a  posteriori. 

To  these  terms,  which  are  to  be  found  in  Logic  since  the 
time  of  Aristotle,  Kant  gave  an  epistemological  significance 
The  logical  a  priori  is  cognition  of  anything  on  the  side  of 
its  conditions,  of  what  it  can  be  shown  by  the  laws  of  thought 
to  depend  upon ;  it  is  knowledge  in  deductive  form.  And  it 
is  so  called  because  it  can  be  shown  to  be  dependent,  through 
the  laws  of  thought  or  consistency,  on  what  has  been  already 
known  or  assumed,  i.  e.  on  premises.  This  is  the  only  kind 
of  conclusion  that  is  absolutely  certain.  But  we  can  make 
other  inferences,  for  which  we  can  never  claim  absolute 
certainty,  and  yet  which  are  the  most  important,  viz.  induc- 
tions, or  general  assertions  about  facts.  Here,  except  in 
Jevons's  trivial  case  of  Perfect  Induction,  the  certainty  of  our 
inference  is  technically  open  to  dispute ;  it  is  only  probable. 
Such  an  inference  is  termed  knowledge  a  posteriori. 

Kant  uses  the  terms  for  the  two  kinds  of  factors  present  in 
knowledge.  That  which  comes  from  sense,  without  which 
no  exercise  of  '  pure '  reason  has  any  validity,  is  knowledge 
a  posteriori.  But  without  the  a  priori  factor  of  '  pure  reason ' 
(reason  not  derived  from  experience)  working  on  experience 
we  cannot  get  knowledge.  For  Kant,  a  priori  is  a  general 
name  for  •  rational '  as  opposed  to  '  empirical ; '  it  is  what 
Leibniz,  in  correcting  Locke,  meant  by  intelleclus,  or  that 
which  is  furnished  by  the  mind's  original  constitution. 

Kant,  be  it  noted,  was  very  vague  in  his  use  of  '  experience.' 
Sometimes  it  means  with  him  the  contribution  of  sense  to 


126  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

knowledge ;  at  other  times  it  stands,  not  for  bare  sense- 
material,  but  for  sense  as  ordered  and  interpreted  by  a  priori 
principles—  in  fact  for  knowledge. 

A  priori  Forms. 

Again,  just  as  in  Logic  a  distinction  is  drawn  between 
matter  and  form  of  thought,  so  Kant  distinguished  episte- 
mologically  between  matter  and  form  of  cognition  generally. 
The  matter  of  knowledge  is  the  data  of  sense ;  these  are 
taken  up  into,  or  perceived  under,  '  pure  forms.'  The  '  forms ' 
of  sense  are  space  and  time.  When  I  get  external  sensations 
I  am  so  constituted  that  I  order  them  in  space.  And  I  order 
all  my  sensations  in  time.  Space  and  time  are  pure  forms 
of  intuition — a  term  which  Kant  was  careful  to  connect  wilh 
sense-perception  only,  and  not  with  Reason,  seeing  how 
related  the  words  are. 

Next,  sense-perception,  so  explained  from  the  conjunction 
of  matter  and  pure  forms,  becomes  ready  for  conceptual  know- 
ing, i.  e.  for  an  orderly  scheme  or  fabric  of  knowing  common 
to  man  and  man — in  other  words,  objective  knowledge. 
Objective  knowledge  does  not  necessarily  refer  to  objects  in 
space.  Is  it  a  fact  that  every  event  has  a  cause  ?  If  it  be 
agreed  that  this  is  so,  here  is  objective  knowledge,  although 
it  does  not  refer  to  objects  in  space.  Such  knowledge  con- 
sists of  sense-phenomena  subsumed  or  brought  under  pure 
concepts  of  the  understanding  or  fundamental  principles  of 
judgment,  by  which  Kant  did  not  understand  so  many  'innate 
ideas,'  but  postulated  certain  necessary  forms  of  thought. 

Universality  and  Necessity  in  Knowledge. 
For  there  is  a  part  of  our  knowledge,  there  are  some  of 
our  cognitions,  which  are  not  only  universal  or  objective,  but 
also  necessary.     Some  judgments  assume  the  form  '  S  it  P,' 


xm. ]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  127 

but  some  that  of  '  S  must  be  P.'  Now  no  experience  can 
explain — so  philosophers  said — why  a  '  must  be '  is  used  any 
more  than  it  can  warrant  universal  validity.  Experience  deals 
with  particulars  only.  It  cannot  tell  us  that  all  are  so,  or  that 
all  must  be  so ;  we  only  know  by  it  that  this,  that,  and  the 
other  are  so.  We  do  not  hesitate  to  say  '  All  men  are  mortal,' 
but  we  only  know  that  certain  men  of  whom  we  have  had 
experience  have  died.  Knowledge  may,  on  the  warrant  of 
experience,  assume  a  general  form  from  particulars,  but  then 
it  is  only  probable ;  it  is  of  the  nature  of  belief;  it  is  practical, 
not  theoretical  necessity.  So  for  universality.  Kant  paid 
most  attention  to  necessity,  defining  more  exactly  than 
had  ever  been  done  before  the  nature  of  the  problem  and 
distinguishing  between  kinds  of  necessity.  Necessity  in  know- 
ledge first  found  explicit  statement  (as  we  have  seen)  in 
Leibniz.  Locke  gave  an  account  of  necessary  truth,  and 
Hume  tried  to  account  for  the  aspect  of  necessity  by  the 
merely  subjective  explanation  that  it  is  habit  or  custom  that 
determines  us  to  think  thus.  Mill  argued  for  inseparable 
association. 

Now  Kant  distinguished  between  Analytic  and  Synthetic 
propositions:  these  do  but  correspond  to  the  Essential  and 
Non-essential  judgments  of  the  Schoolmen  and  to  Mill's 
Verbal  and  Real  predication.  An  analytic  proposition  is  one 
where  P  (predicate)  is  involved  in  the  thought  of  S  (subject). 
Locke  miscalled  such  propositions  '  trivial.'  '  Man  is  rational ' 
is  an  analytic  proposition,  because  by  '  man '  we  mean  rational 
animal.  Man  must  be  rational  or  he  is  not  man.  Kant  saw 
that  all  such  judgments  have  the  character  of  logical  necessity — 
necessity  under  the  laws  of  thought  (of  Identity,  Contradiction, 
Excluded  Middle,  or  generally,  of  Consistency).  Every  step 
in  thought  that  proceeds  under  the  laws  of  thought  may  be 


128  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

expressed  in  terms  of  necessity.  Deny — and,  as  Aristotle 
would  say,  you  are  a  vegetable.  This  is  a  kind  of  necessity 
experience  may  give  distinct  occasion  for,  e.  g.  '  Body  is 
extended ; '  '  Crows  are  black.'     We  can  put  this  kind  aside. 

But,  said  Kant,  we  often  have  judgments  which  are  not 
analytic  and  yet  are  necessary,  e.g. '  Two  straight  lines  cannot 
enclose  a  space.'  This  is  a  synthetic  proposition  ;  Professor 
Bain  (in  his  Logic)  tried  to  show  it,  on  no  ground  whatever,  to 
be  analytic.  It  is  also  necessary.  We  may  say  merely  '  do  not 
enclose,'  but  the  necessity,  even  if  excluded  from  the  form  of 
the  proposition,  lies  in  its  matter.  Now  Kant  found  necessities 
of  thought  of  this  kind,  not  only  in  mathematics  but  throughout 
the  whole  fabric  of  knowledge,  e.  g.  '  Every  event  must  have 
a  cause.'  And  he  called  such  judgments  synthetic  propositions 
a  priori,  i.  e.  necessary  because  of  an  a  priori  synthesis  formed 
in  the  very  nature  of  human  reason,  and  not  a  posteriori  or 
constructed  by  the  light  of  experience.  It  was  thus  that  he 
answered  the  question,  '  How  are  synthetic  propositions  a 
priori  possible  ? '  '  How  is  real  predication  also  necessary?' 
The  human  mind  brings  to  the  results  of  bare  sense-experi- 
ence certain  subjective  factors,  viz.  (i)  pure  intuitions,  in 
order  to  perception ;  (2)  pure  categories  of  concepts,  in  order 
to  understanding ;  (3)  pure  ideas,  in  order  to  reason. 

Of  these  (1),  i.e.  space  and  time,  are  not  general  notions, 
but  pure  forms  for  the  reception  of  the  bare  matter  of  sensa- 
tion that  arises  in  us.  They  are  the  conditions  under  which 
sense-impressions  are  consciously  experienced  by  us  as  having 
the  character  of  definite  phenomena  mutually  related  in  the 
way  of  succession  or  co-existence.  There  is  nothing  in  sense 
to  explain  sensations  as  apart  from  each  other  in  space  and 
time.  This  represents  the  first  stage  of  cognition  as  we 
have  it. 


xiii. ]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  129 

The  phenomena  thus  found  to  be  the  transformed  data  of 
sense  now  become  matter  for  further  elaboration,  and  get  into 
definite  relations  with  each  other,  as  causes  and  effects,  &c; 
and  by  these  new  kinds  of  '  form '  applicable  to  phenomena 
as  their  '  matter/  just  as  space  and  time  are  applicable  to 
sense-impressions  as  their  matter,  the  order  of  nature  becomes 
explicable.  If  I  simply  say  '  The  earth  draws  a  stone/  there 
is  involved  this  double  elaboration  of  the  bare  facts  of  sense 
as  originally  given.  They  are  first  ordered  as  phenomena, 
then  ordered  into  relations.  And  the  forms  into  which 
phenomena  are  thus  taken  up  are  twelve  '  categories  of  the 
understanding  V  All  are  involved  in  physical  experience,  for 
these  'forms'  of  the  mind  are  not  cognitions  in  and  for 
themselves,  but  apply  to  phenomena  only,  and  have  no 
meaning  out  of  relation  to  them.  Even  what  we  call  experi- 
ence is  saturated  with  '  reason/  with  those  highest  elabora- 
tions or  syntheses — the  ideas  of  the  self  or  soul,  the  cosmos, 
God— which  completed  the  Kantian  account  of  the  subjective 
factor  in  knowledge. 

Kant's  Theory  of  Space. 
So  much  for  general  exposition.     I  will  now  confine  myself 
to  space  and  those  propositions  about  it  which  are  both  neces- 
sary and  synthetic.     Kant  maintained  that  we  cannot  account 

1  '  Discoverable  from  the  common  analysis  of  judgments  in  logic. 
(«)  Three  categories  of  Quantity:  Unity,  Plurality.  Universality  (as 
involved  in  Singular,  Particular,  Universal  judgments  respectively). 
(b)  Three  of  Quality.  Reality,  Negation,  Limitation  (in  Positive, 
Negative,  Infinite  judgments  .  (c)  Three  of  Relation  :  Substantiality, 
Causality,  Community  or  Reciprocal action  (in  Categorical,  Hypothetical, 
Disjunctive  judgments'),  id)  Three  of  Modality  :  Possibility,  Existence, 
Necessity  (jn  Problematic,  Assertory,  Apodeictic  judgments;.'  Bain, 
op.  cit.  App.  B,  p.  60. — Ed 

K 


130  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

for  our  knowledge  of  space  by  reference  to  experience,  for  if 
we  could,  we  could  never  form  necessary  synthetic  propositions 
about  it.  We  have  a  pure  intuition  of  space ;  it  is  a  pure 
form,  and  we  put  our  experiences  into  it.  In  support  of  this 
position  he  adduced  psychological  evidence  both  negative  and 
positive — negative,  in  that  he  asks  us  to  produce  those  sources 
of  experience,  whence  we  have  notions  of  space  ;  positive,  in 
that  space  in  relation  to  sensation  stands  in  a  quite  peculiar 
position,  thus  : — we  experience  our  sensations  as  in  space,  and 
while  we  can  think  of  any  of  those  sensations  as  eliminated, 
we  cannot  think  away  space.  We  can  think  of  a  pillar  as 
having  colour,  as  emitting  sound  when  struck,  but  we  cannot 
think  away  its  extension.  We  may  colour  our  space  as  we 
like,  but  it  must  always  remain  extended.  Space,  then,  is 
one  of  the  two  '  forms '  of  sensibility,  a  form  to  which  sense 
supplies  the  matter ;  it  is  there  before  experience,  and  there- 
fore we  can  utter  synthetic  propositions  not  built  up  by 
experience. 

Associationist  Explanation  of  Necessity  in  Knowledge. 

Kant's  insight  into  this  question  surpassed  that  of  his  pre- 
decessors both  Rationalist  and  Experientialist.  I  think  that 
we  may  yield  him  this  pre-eminence  and  yet,  in  the  light  of 
our  more  advanced  psychology,  be  able  to  explain  those 
aspects  of  our  cognition  of  space  which  led  him  to  deny  its 
experiential  origin.  Let  us  face  him  with  the  developed 
position  of  his  Associationist  opponents  as  best  seen  in  Mill 
and  Professor  Bain.  The  latter  in  his  Psychology  gives  the 
very  data  which  we  shall  use  to  show  where  Kant  was  wrong, 
yet  he  does  not  make  use  of  them  as  he  might  have  done. 
Had  he  seen  the  full  import  of  what  he  makes  out,  he  would 
have  had  a  better  argument  against  the  Kantian  position.  Take 


xiil]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  131 

Mill : — For  him  there  is  nothing  in  our  knowledge  of  space 
which  may  not  be  accounted  for  by  the  amount  and  constancy 
of  our  experience  going  to  form  the  cognition.  If  we  find 
that  we  cannot  think  of  colour  except  as  in  space,  it  is  because 
we  find  that  they  always  do  go  together.  Associations,  though 
formed  within  experience,  may  become  inseparable.  '  Space 
a  form  in  which  we  receive  colour  as  matter  ? '  No,  said  Mill ; 
we  have  always  apprehended  colour  as  extended,  extension 
as  coloured.  Necessity  depends  upon  the  amount  of  experi- 
ence, which  is  here  of  a  peculiarly  simple  kind.  Experience 
that  is  frequent  and  constant  enough  can  give  rise  to  a  '  must 
be,'  a  '  cannot  be.' 

Criticism  of  both  Positions. 

Now  I  have  thrown  doubt  on  how  Associationism  can  ever 
account  for  the  necessity  of  synthetic  propositions.  I  take 
a  middle  position,  neither  Kantian  nor  Associationist,  finding 
neither  view  perfectly  valid.  Is  Space  a  form  for  all  external 
sensations  ?  (I  omit  Time — for  lack  of  it.)  Yes,  said  Kant, 
sensations  are  by  us  ordered  in  space.  Well,  I  have  shown, 
in  dealing  with  perception  \  that  every  sensation  does 
come  to  have  some  kind  of  spatial  reference — more  or  less. 
But  there  is  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  of  degree.  For 
that  difference  of  degree  we  must  account  in  detail,  and  this 
puts  a  check  on  our  agreeing  with  Kant's  superficial  assertion, 
that  space  is  form  for  all  sensations  alike.  Do  the  notes  in 
the  scale  of  an  octave  or  in  a  chord  appear  to  us  spread  out 
in  space  like  the  colour-spectrum  ?  It  is  true  that  we  should 
hear  them  as  '  in  space,'  yet  the  spatial  order  is  very  different. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  protest  against  ranking  our  experience 
of  space  on  a  level  with  that  of  colour  or  sound,  as  the 
Associationists  do.  How  can  we  have  experience  of  colour? 
1  V.  Elements  of  Psychology,  p.  96. — Ed. 


132  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

By  way  of  sensations  passively  received.  How  of  space  ? 
There  is  no  such  simple  source  of  space-experience.  In- 
separable association  exists,  it  is  true,  as  a  psychological  fact, 
and  explains  much  that  looks  like  necessity.  Mill  uses  it  to 
account  for  mathematical  necessity.  The  ideas,  e.  g.,  of  '  two 
straight  lines '  and  '  what  cannot  enclose  a  space '  have  come, 
through  personal  experience,  to  be  so  closely  associated  as  to 
be  practically  inseparable.  But  however  that  may  be,  colour 
and  extension  do  not  constitute  a  case  of  inseparable  associa- 
tion. We  must  find  one  where  the  associates  were  first  known 
in  separation,  e.  g.  the  name  '  hat '  and  the  thing  '  hat.'  In- 
separable association  refers  to  what  is  practically  inseparable, 
not  to  what  is  theoretically  inseparable.  And  if  we  look  at 
how  the  human  organism  is  constituted,  we  see  that  the 
relation  of  colour  and  extension  cannot  be  a  case  of  two  more 
or  less  indifferent  elements  being  brought  together  by  chance- 
experience  and  fused.  It  lies  in  the  constitution  of  our  per- 
ceptive faculty  that  we  cannot  but  have  the  experience  of 
extended  colour  if  we  have  eyes.  I  am  so  constituted  that 
when  I  am  affected  by  colour  I  move  my  eyes.  This  is  a 
necessity  of  the  constitution,  and  not  of  acquired  experi- 
ence. Inseparable  association  can  never  explain  necessity  in 
knowledge. 

But  have  we  not  seen,  it  may  be  asked,  how  extension  is 
explicable  by 'muscular  sense'?  This  is  really  important, 
though  more  is  required.  It  is  by  reference  to  '  active  sense,' 
the  resultant  of  muscular  sense  in  conjunction  with  passive 
sense,  that  we  do  get  an  actual  experiential  origin  of  our 
perception  of  space.  Space,  as  we  have  seen,  is  no  simple 
experience,  but  a  complex  product  of  data  given  by  colours 
and  touch.  Thus  space  is  a  'form'— I  have  no  objection  to 
the  term  as  expressing  the  relation  of  space  to  simple  sensa- 


xiil]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  133 

tions  —but  it  is  not  therefore  a  '  pure  intuition,'  since  we  can 
psychologically  explain  it.  Nor  is  it  the  universal  form  of 
external  sensation. 

Organic  Necessity. 

Now  if,  constituted  as  we  are,  some  sense-organs  only  are 
muscular,  and  if  it  is  the  fact  of  muscularity  whereby  we  have 
apprehension  of  extension,  it  becomes  a  necessity  for  us  to 
have  those  sensations  '  in '  space.  We  arc  so  ordered,  through 
the  mobility  of  our  hands,  eyes,  &c,  as  to  have  those  sensa- 
tions so.  Here  is  the  explanation  of  this  necessity—  because 
of  our  organic  constitution.  And  this  is  not  to  explain  mind 
from  matter;  I  use  'eyes/  'muscles/  &c,  to  designate  the 
factors,  not  to  explain  them.  The  material  differences  in  the 
brains  of  different  men  suggest  differences  of  mental  ability. 
Kant,  then,  was  right  in  maintaining  that  our  reference  of 
colours  to  space  was  of  our  original  constitution,  though  what 
he  called  pure  intuition  I  term  bodily  organs.  Whether  the 
tendency  be  innate  I  know  not,  not  knowing  the  consciousness 
of  myself  as  an  infant  or  that  of  other  infants.  Even  were  it 
not  so,  the  psychological  facts  we  have  mentioned  can  account 
for  the  development  of  the  cognition  within  the  lifetime  of  the 
individual.  And  if  it  were  so,  the  tendency  would  still  be  not 
a  pure  intuition,  but  the  result  of  the  principle  of  heredity. 
Pure  intuition  cannot  satisfy  ;  we  must  inquire  further.  I  am 
far  from  dogmatically  asserting  that  the  idea  of  space  is  got 
in  the  life  of  the  individual ;  it  may,  or  may  not,  be  so.  It 
were  possible  to  go  deeper  than  Mill  or  Bain,  and  yet  give 
a  psychologically  based  explanation.  Enough  here  to  say 
that  the  line  is  fruitful,  and  that  more  may  be  done  therein 
by  English  psychologists  than  Kant  ever  achieved.  I  am  not 
hostile  to  Mill's  exposition  on  demonstrative  science  in  the 
second  book  of  the  Logic.     It  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  and 


134  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

is  the  best  explanation  yet  made  from  the  point  of  view  of 
individual  experience.  Professor  Bain  gives  his  adhesion  to 
Mill's  mathematical  theory,  but  extraordinary  is  the  way  in 
which  in  his  Logic l  he  throws  away  the  advantages  got  from 
his  position  in  psychology  as  to  our  unique  apprehension  of 
extension,  and  never  refers  to  it.  For  if  extension  is  not  had 
merely  by  experience  from  without,  but  by  activity  of  ours  put 
forth,  springing  from  within,  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  we  are 
reduced  to  the  same  conditions  for  our  knowledge  of  space 
as  for  that  of  the  qualities  of  things.  It  is  always  possible 
for  us  to  perform  movement  of  some  sort,  and  this  movement 
is  involved  in  our  apprehension  of  extension.  My  knowledge 
of  space  depends  upon  my  acting  when  I  like ;  other  per- 
ception  depends  upon  whenever,  in  a  broken,  limited  way, 
I  happen  to  be  sensibly  affected.  We  make,  we  determine 
space ;  we  come  to  know  it  by  way  of  construction — not  of 
a  priori  construction,  not  of  spontaneity  of  thought,  as  Kant 
said,  but  by  conscious  bodily  exertion,  not  limited  by  occasions 
of  passive  sense-impressions.  And  this  is  because  we  are 
what  we  are.  We  are  thrown  back  on  our  original  constitution. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  science  of  space  is  different  from  the 
inductive  sciences  of  nature ;  hence  it  is  that  mathematics  is 
a  demonstrative  science.  The  explanation  applies  to  all 
sciences  in  so  far  as  they  are  demonstrative — to  Arithmetic 
and  Physics,  e.  g.  as  well  as  to  Geometry — for  all  are  to  that 
extent  concerned  with  matter  as  apprehended  by  activity,  by 
construction ;  and  herein  lies  their  '  necessity.'  Other  sciences 
we  form  piecemeal  from  experience 2. 

1  'Deduction,'  Bk.  II.  ch.  v. 

3  The  lecturer  referred  students,  for  a  fuller  explanation,  to  his 
article  '  Axiom '  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britamiica.  (Reprinted  in 
Philomphi.al    Remains,    pp.119  r3a) — Ed. 


LECTURE   XIV. 

THE   NATURE   OF   KNOWLEDGE.      CAUSATION. 

The  Category  of  Causality. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  Kant's  Categories  of  the  Under- 
standing, and  single  out  for  examination  and  comparison 
that  one  which  the  growth  of  modern  science  has  brought 
most  prominently  under  discussion.  When  things  are 
sensibly  perceived  they  are  ordered  in  space  or  in  time; 
but  when  thought  or  generally  known,  i.  e.  when  in  the  form 
of  concept,  we  say  they  must  have  a  cause.  Now  according 
to  Kant  this  is  a  synthetic  assertion  a  priori.  Cause,  or 
cause  and  effect,  is  a  pure  concept  not  got  by  experience. 
We  are  naturally  determined  to  look  for  something  before 
and  after  an  action.  With  cause,  as  with  space,  a  necessity 
is  laid  upon  us  in  the  act  of  knowing.  This  was  an  immense 
step  beyond  earlier  views;  it  is  perfectly  intelligible  and 
satisfactory  also — as  far  as  it  goes.  Before  Kant's  time  no 
one  took  the  trouble  fully  to  analyse  knowing  as  we  find  it. 

The  Growth  of  the  Notion  of  Cause. 
The  question  of  causation  is  as  old  as  Plato,  but  the 
epistemological  aspect  of  it — '  How  do  we,  in  our  knowledge, 
come  to  relate  phenomena  to  one  another  as   cause  and 


136  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

effect  ? ' — has  (in  addition  to  the  consideration  of  space)  only 
come  to  the  front  since  the  time  of  Hume  and  Kant  in 
connexion  with  the  establishment  and  progress  of  modern 
science.  Through  that,  Nature  has  come  to  be  regarded  as 
a  realm  within  which  law  reigns  universally.  Nature  has 
always,  it  is  true,  been  considered  as  a  realm  in  which  there 
are  things  having  a  fixed  occurrence,  and  a  law  of  universal 
causation  is  no  new  thing  in  philosophy.  Without  the 
acceptance  of  the  law  there  could  be  no  science  as  science  is 
now  constituted.  Yet  it  is  only  lately  that  Nature  has  been 
scientifically  investigated  in  a  thorough-going  manner,  and 
the  law  applied  to  every  kind  of  phenomena.  People  have 
not  always  referred  every  thing  and  every  happening  to  cause 
and  effect.  Even  Aristotle  expressly  distinguished  a  region 
of  cause  from  a  region  of  chance.  And  there  are  some  who 
still  deny  that  mental  phenomena  are  regulated  by  it.  For 
example,  it  is  a  question  still  raised  whether  human  action, 
the  action  of  beings  having  a  conscious  volition,  is  a  fixed 
and  orderly  action  which  can  be  investigated  and  forecast  like 
other  facts  in  nature.  This  is  the  famous  free-will  con- 
troversy (v.  infra,  Lecture  XIX).  The  difference  of  opinion 
which  we  see  yet  prevailing  with  regard  to  this  sphere  of 
occurrence  formerly  prevailed  with  regard  to  all  nature.  It 
was  held  that  things  would  happen  otherwise  than  under  the 
condition  of  strict  uniformity. 

Causation  as  Universal. 

Generally  speaking,  however,  the  causal  connexion  may 
now  be  considered  as  established.  In  regard  practically  to 
anything  that  happens,  we  are  prepared  to  make  one  pre- 
supposition if  none  other,  namely,  that  it  is  caused,  or 
determined  to  happen,  and  that  it  does  net  happen  except  as  it 


xiv.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  137 

is  caused.  When  anything  happens,  I  say,  we  also  assume 
that  it  follows  on  something  else,  not  as  on  a  bare  antecedent 
in  time,  but  as  on  a  cause  or  determinant.  We  assume 
that  Nature  is  an  aggregate  of  events  all  determined  to 
happen  as  they  do  happen,  i.e.  that  Nature  is  uniform  in 
respect  to  cause  and  effect.  When  an  event  happens  we 
seek  to  conjoin  it  with  some  other  event  as  cause.  On  this 
assumption  is  based  all  scientific  generalisation,  all  inductive 
inference,  every  real  and  complete  induction.  For  a  complete 
induction  is  one  where  the  nature  of  the  instances  is  such 
that  any  other  result  than  the  universal  assertion  we  commit 
ourselves  to  would  run  contrary  to  the  universality  of  the 
law  of  causation ',  The  causal  connexion  then  being  at  this 
time  of  day  established,  we  have  to  account  for  it. 

Rationalist  and  Experientialist  Explanations  of  Cause. 

Now  Hume  was  the  first  to  account  for  the  causal  con- 
nexion on  the  ground  of  experience,  there  being  nothing 
beyond  experience  that  he  can  find  to  explain  it  from. 
Locke  was  too  far  back  in  time  to  touch  the  subject. 
Science  was  then  too  little  established  as  a  system  of  know- 
ledge to  draw  the  attention  of  philosophers.  But  Kant,  who 
professed  to  account  for  science  as  we  find  it,  had  specially 
to  occupy  himself  with  this  question.  And  since  his  time 
Rationalists  have  held  cause  to  be  a  'pure  concept.' 
Hamilton  indeed  thought  to  advance  beyond  Kant  in  saying 
that  the  judgment  of  causality  is  a  work  not  of  the  Elabora- 
tive,  but  of  the  Regulative  Faculty — an  act  of  reason  as 
opposed  to  the  understanding.  We  are,  according  to  him, 
to  account  for  universal  causation,  not  by  a  pure  concept 
brought  by  the  mind,  i.e.  by  the  mind's  ability,  but  as  due 

1  Cf.  J.  S.  Mill,  Examination  of  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  p.  402,  note. 


138  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

rather  to  its  impotence.  It  is  owing  to  the  limitation  of  the 
mind  that  we  bring  everything  in  relation  to  something 
else.  Every  event  must  have  a  cause;  we  cannot  help  it. 
This  is  in  connexion  with  his  fundamental  '  Law  of  the 
Conditioned.'  Hamilton's  turn  to  the  argument  should  be 
studied,  but  his  doctrine  of  causation  is  not  good.  Kant's 
position  is  preferable.  He  best  represents  the  Rationalist 
position,  Hume  and  Mill  that  of  Experientialism. 

I  throw  up  a  stone,  and  it  falls  to  the  ground.  I  say, '  The 
earth  attracts  the  stone/  Now  the  Experientialist  explains 
this  judgment,  as  made  on  the  strength  of  the  individual's 
countless  experiences  of  this  sequence  of  phenomena.  He 
asserts  causation  as  a  generalisation  from  experience.  Whereas 
Kant  maintained  that,  unless  he  could  first  pass  an  a  priori 
judgment  of  causality,  he  could  never  have  the  experience  at 
all — that  we  bring  our  category  of  causality  to  bear  on,  and 
elaborate  the  judgment  out  of,  the  bare  experience  of  the 
stone  falling  to  earth.  (Notice  that  Kant — and  he  is  not 
alone  in  this  usage — employs  experience  ambiguously  as 
meaning  either  raw  sense-material,  or  phenomena  ordered 
in  certain  ways,  i.e.  according  to  the  categories.)  According 
to  Kant,  I  repeat,  unless  we  knew  a  priori  that  every  event 
must  have  a  cause,  we  should  never  have  got  so  far  as  to 
say  '  The  earth  attracts  the  stone.'  According  to  Mill  the 
phenomenon  is  a  simple  particular  by  which  we  rise  to 
the  universal  assertion. 

Criticism  of  both  Positions. 

Now  I  am  wholly  dissatisfied  with  this  common-place 
Experientialism  of  Mill  and  others.  Not  thus  can  we  account 
for  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  not  driven  to 
Kant's  alternative,  to  assert  cause  as  a  pure  concept  of  the 


xiv.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  139 

understanding.  For  as  we  found  that  his  pure  form  of 
intuition  was  not  pure — since  space  has  a  development — so 
we  find  that  cause  is  not  a  pure  concept.  It  comes  by  way 
of  sense,  although  not  given  by  experience  already  developed. 
Nevertheless,  as  against  crude  Experientialism,  I  side  with 
Kant,  who  gives  a  much  profounder  analysis  of  knowledge. 

Cause  in  Science  and  in  Popular  Usage. 

Before  suggesting  a  solution  of  the  question,  it  is  necessary 
to  make  a  disiinction.  There  is  a  real  difference  between 
cause  as  understood  in  science  and  cause  as  used  in  every- 
day speech.  The  cause  of  anything  that  science  seeks  to 
account  for  is  the  set  of  conditions  of  a  phenomenon ;  it 
tries,  in  assigning  cause  and  effect,  to  establish  a  certain 
fixed  relation  among  phenomena — a  certain  kind  of  unifor- 
mity. Science  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  reason  why  one 
phenomenon  should  be  followed  by  another,  and  in  no  way 
professes  to  account  for  the  relation  except  as  a  mere 
uniformity  of  occurrence.  Thus  when  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
in  combination  are  exploded  by  a  spark  there  results  water. 
For  the  purposes  of  science  the  cause  of  this  is  explained 
by  proving  the  presence  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  and  the 
application  of  the  spark.  But  no  one  can  say  what  ultimately 
brings  about  the  result.  Science  has  only  words  to  denote 
a  certain  fixed  succession. 

Popular  speech  is,  however,  much  more  definite  in  assigning 
a  cause.  Where  a  stone  falls  to  the  earth  it  says  at  once, 
'  The  earth  draws,  attracts  the  stone,'  i.e.  has  power  to  produce 
this  effect.  Science  only  points  to  the  fixed  relation  or 
succession  of  phenomena.  Any  succession  is  not  causal,  but 
causation  is  only  succession  of  a  certain  kind.  Now  what 
else  is  there  besides  succession  when  the  principle  of  causality 


140  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

is  assumed  ?  There  seems  an  implication  in  the  philosophical 
principle  resembling  that  in  common  speech,  namely,  of 
power  in  one  thing  to  bring  about  another  thing.  Our 
language  certainly  commits  us  to  more  than  the  bare 
scientific  notion. 

The  scientific  conception  of  cause  has  grown  up  lately, 
because  it  is  only  of  late  that  nature  has  been  regarded 
phenomenally.  Before  positive  science  grew  up  nature  was 
regarded  as  an  aggregate,  not  of  inter-related  phenomena, 
but  of  active  beings.  No  science  came  to  pass  until  men 
looked  away  from  this  view  and  established  definite  relations 
among  facts  as  they  found  them. 

As  this  aspect  of  phenomenal  relation,  of  co-existences 
and  successions,  developed,  the  popular  notion  of  cause  and 
effect,  with  its  implied  assumption  of  power,  became 
attenuated  to  indicate  merely  a  special  kind  of  phenomenal 
succession,  and  theorists  began  to  dispute  the  propriety  of 
using  the  word  •  cause '  in  this  connexion  as  misleading. 
Hume's  philosophy  centres  entirely  round  this  part  of  the 
subject,  namely,  the  great  question  :  Can  this  relation  among 
phenomena  that  science  takes  account  of  be  properly  called 
causal}  Mill  answered  this  affirmatively,  and  tried  to  show 
that  the  notion  of  power  (in  cause  to  produce  effect)  ought 
to  be  excluded  from  the  notion  of  causation.  This  is 
equivalent  to  asserting  that  a  causal  relation,  as  it  is  made 
out  in  science,  is  purely  phenomenal.  Both  Hume  and 
Kant  agree  with  him  here.  Berkeley  regarded  cause  not  as 
a  phenomenal  antecedent,  but  as  a  spiritual  reality,  as  the 
connexion  between  the  real  being  (mind)  and  what  appears. 
He  spoke  of  the  scientific  cause  as  a  '  phenomenal  sign '  of 
the  true  cause,  science  dealing  with  ideas  (phenomena)  that 
are  significant  of  other  ideas.     Comte  was  the  most  thorough 


xiv.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  141 

phenomenalist  of  them  all ;  he  would  not  even  raise  the 
question  as  to  any  reality  beyond  phenomena.  And  just 
because  he  was  a  phenomenalist,  he  wanted  to  get  rid  of  the 
notion  of  cause  altogether,  and  asserted  that  the  utmost  object 
of  science  was  to  determine  uniformities  of  phenomena  or 
laws.  According  to  Mill,  scientific  relations,  though  all 
phenomenal,  may  yet  be  called  causal.  According  to  Comte, 
because  they  are  phenomenal  they  must  not  be  called 
causal.  Comte  agrees  in  expression,  though  not  in  thought, 
with  Berkeley  and  also  with  Dr.  Martineau.  These  two 
concur  in  saying  that  science  is  concerned  only  with  the 
signification  of  phenomena  by  phenomena,  in  order  to  show 
that,  beyond  all  considerations  of  phenomenal  relation,  there 
is  a  deeper  consideration  of  cause,  viz.  as  to  how  any 
phenomenon  is  related  as  effect  to  a  cause  in  the  sphere 
of  metaphysical  reality  or  ultimate  being.  They  hold  that 
when  we  have  got  science  we  are  only  at  the  beginning 
of  our  investigation  and  not,  as  Comte  believed,  at  the  end 
of  all  possible  inquiry. 

Cause  in  Cartesiatiism. 

The  attenuated  notion  of  cause  that  we  find  in  science  had 
already  been  anticipated  in  philosophic  thought  by  Occasion- 
alism, although  based  on  different  premises  from  those  of  Hume 
and  Mill.  Occasionalism  explained  all  change  in  Nature  as 
mere  sequence,  the  full  working  of  cause  being  only  between 
God  and  every  creature.  The  creature  was  robbed  of  causal 
efficiency  *,  this  being  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  account  of 
the  Deity.     Geulincx  especially  came  near  to  scientific  Pheno- 

1  In  Aristotle  'efficient  cause'  includes  the  notion  of  power,  but, 
as  opposed  to  '  final,'  '  formal,'  and  '  material '  causes,  is  equivalent  to 
the  modern  idea  of  causation. 


143  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

menalism  in  seeking  to  account  for  the  apparent  interaction 
of  two  such  opposed  substances  as  mind  and  body.  Male- 
branche  also  explained  every  event  as  due  to  direct  divine 
intervention,  finding  in  the  world  only  phenomenal  conjunction. 
Descartes  himself  went  nearly  as  far  as  this  in  controversy. 
They  tended  to  the  Pantheism,  with  its  notion  of  immanent 
causation,  which  was  fully  developed  by  Spinoza. 

The  Logical  Weakness  of  Mill's  Theory. 

What  account  do  we  give  of  this  problem  ?  Can  we  say  with 
Mill  that  every  human  mind,  from  seeing  things  happen, 
develops  the  conviction  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause  ? 
If  we  study  what  Mill  says  in  his  Logic  for  this  position,  we 
find  it  gives  strength  to  Kant's  view.  Data  that  he  assumes 
to  account  for  causation  are  already  co-ordinated  by  the 
application  of  the  pre-existent  principle,  for  we  are  naturally 
determined  to  interpret  our  experiences  by  way  of  causation. 
The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  accepting  Mill's  view  are 
insuperable.  * 

Universal  Causation  a  Postulate  in  Science. 

For  purposes  of  science,  I  think  that  at  present  it  is  a 
sufficient  explanation  of  the  universality  of  causation  when  it 
is  set  out  as  a  postulate^  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  have 
science  at  all.  If  things  happened  now  in  one  way  and  now 
in  another  we  could  make  no  general  assertion  about  them. 
We  must  postulate  a  fixity  in  the  occurrence  of  phenomena. 
This  will  be  sufficient  to  account  for  the  universality  of 
causation  in  science.  If  with  some  we  doubt  whether  it  be 
universal  there  is  so  much  of  science  blotted  out  for  us.  We 
may  use  the  word  '  cause  '  for  the  mere  phenomenal  relation, 
but  it  must  be  without  misunderstanding  it.     The  question 


xiv.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  143 

whether  cause  has  power  to  produce  an  effect  has  no  meaning 

in  science.    But  this  is  not  accounting  philosophically  for  the 

notion. 

The  Truth  in  Milts  Theory. 

Having  excluded  the  notion  of  ■  efficient  cause '  from 
science,  Mill  seeks  the  origin  of  our  notion  of  cause  and  effect 
in  generalisation  from  the  phenomenal  relation.  He  argues 
that  the  principle  of  causation  on  which  induction  is  based 
is  itself  an  induction.  This  is  to  beg  the  question.  And  he 
reckons  this  generalisation  from  experience  of  cause  and 
effect  as,  according  to  Bacon's  term,  an  induction  '  by  simple 
enumeration  of  instances,'  i.e  by  the  weakest,  the  least 
scientific  method  of  induction,  Mill  himself  allowing,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  he  cannot  make  a  good  induction  until  he 
has  got  the  principle  of  causation.  Hence  he  gets  the 
principle  by  a  bad  induction.  This  is  not  worked  out  as 
well  as  it  might  have  been.  Nevertheless  there  is  reason  in 
his  position.  He  arrives  at  his  primary  assertion  tentatively, 
and  it  is  strengthened  by  every  fresh  induction.  We  may 
trust  simple  enumeration  in  regard  to  the  general  fact  of 
causation  in  Nature,  but  not  in  regard  to  cause  in  a  special 
case ;  in  the  latter  we  need  to  base  our  inquiry  on  the  law  of 
causation  itself. 

In  point  of  fact  it  must  have  been  from  experience  that 
people  arrived  at  the  idea  of  universal  causation,  because  it 
is  only  lately  that  universal  causation  has  become  recognised. 
Whereas  if  it  were  a  pure  concept,  why  was  it  not  recognised 
before  ?  Kant  does  not  face  this  evolution  in  thought.  An 
experiential  origin  of  the  notion  of  cause  may  be  defended  as 
against  his  view. 

Yet  I  do  not  put  the  case  like  Mill.  The  notion  of  cause 
is   not  derived   from   a   consideration   of    the   phenomenal 


144  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

relation,  because  this  is  not  a  natural  but  an  artificial  view  of 
the  question,  whereas  the  notion  of  cause  has  grown  up  with 
men  from  the  beginning.  It  is  from  the  popular  idea, 
whence  the  scientific  sense  of  causation  has  been  derived  by 
attenuation,  that  the  philosophical  notion  of  cause  was  first 
got,  and  it  is  in  reference  to  that,  that  the  question  of  ground 
should  be  raised.  For  we  do  ultimately  think  of  cause  as 
something  with  power  to  produce  an  effect.  Whence  then 
does  this  arise?  Through  external  experience  or  apart 
from  it  ? 

The  Psychological  Basis  of  the  Notion  of  Cause. 

Exactly  that  which  Mill  protests  against  Reid's  adducing 
to  account  for  the  notion  of  cause  may  be  maintained  in 
explanation  of  the  popular  idea.  The  notion  of  power 
in  the  conception  of  cause  is  got  from  our  consciousness 
of  being  able  to  put  forth  activity,  from  our  consciousness  of 
volition.  Both  Hume  and  Mill  argue  that  actual  experience 
of  cause  and  effect  shows  only  a  relation  between  phenomena 
either  from  the  objective  or  the  subjective  point  of  view.  I 
demur.  However  necessary  it  may  be  for  scientific  purposes 
to  regard  our  subjective  states  as  phenomena,  no  man  regards 
himself  simply  as  a  phenomenon  or  series  of  phenomena. 
We  know  ourselves  as  beings  that  may  or  may  not  exert 
a  definite  energy,  and  this  quite  takes  our  actions  out  of  the 
category  of  phenomenal  successions.  Now  just  as,  in  regard 
to  movements  of  my  body,  I  come  to  consider  them  as 
depending  on  my  will,  so  I  come  to  conceive  there  is  a 
similar  'causal'  power  determining  other  movements  in 
nature. 

Mansel  thought  this  not  enough,  and  that  to  find  the  root 
of  the  notion  it  was  necessary  to  go  down  to  the  power  of 


xiv.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  145 

man  to  determine  the  successive  states  of  his  mind.  This 
is  of  course  one  case  of  the  exercise  of  our  volition,  but  it  is 
better  to  take  the  more  general  and  the  older  view.  So  when 
we  say  that  the  earth  draws  a  stone  we  ascribe  a  personality 
to  the  earth  just  as  we  are  conscious  of  our  own  personality, 
in  the  same  way  as  I  ascribe  to  another  personality  the 
power  of  moving  the  arm.  If  I  credit  you  and  the  earth  with 
being  reservoirs  of  power,  it  is  because  I  have  read  my  own 
consciousness  into  everything  that  I  say  acts.  I  have  read 
into  my  experience  what  is  not  directly  in  it.  Not  that  we 
really  think  that  the  earth  is  endowed  with  a  personality  like 
ourselves,  but  we  have  a  tendency  to  read  it  into  the  earth, 
despite  our  real  convictions. 

The  Larger  Experientialistn. 

Thus  there  is  a  good  ground  for  urgirg  that  we  do  not 
get  the  notion  of  cause  from  strictly  phenomenal  experience. 
The  Rationalist  position  is  so  far  good.  Yet  if  we  consider 
the  circumstances  fully,  we  shall  come  to  see  that  this  mode 
of  interpretation  is  not  fixed  and  fast,  but  has  gradually  grown 
up,  and,  like  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  has  been 
developed  with  the  human  race,  or  anterior  to  it  in  the 
succession  of  animal  life.  This  mode  of  interpreting  our 
experience  as  a  world  of  active  causes,  however  natural  for 
all  of  us  now,  even  for  the  uninstructed — more  perhaps  for 
them — has  only,  as  there  is  every  reason  to  believe,  come  to 
be  developed  gradually,  as  men  have  awaked  to  full  con- 
sciousness. Man  came  to  interpret  the  world  in  this  way 
after  the  experience  of  ages,  and  not  within  the  experience 
of  the  individual.  In  this  way  only  may  the  Experientialist 
position  be  justified.  It  does  seem  to  me  that,  despite  the 
position  taken  up  by  the  English   Associationists,  we   can 

L 


146  Elements  of  General  Philosophy* 

find  no  sufficient  explanation  of  our  view  of  the  world,  as  an 
aggregate  of  active  agents  in  relation  to  one  another,  in 
terms  of  their  principles  only.  My  view  of  the  world  as 
known  is  not  explained  by  my  simple  sense-experiences 
becoming  aggregated  under  principles  of  association.  There 
is  more  in  my  knowledge  than  my  experience  can 
account  for. 


For  Lecture  XV  read : — 
G.  C.  Robertson,   Philosophical  Remains,   pp.   63-74  '• — '  How  we 
come  by  our  Knowledge '  (or  Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1877). — Ed. 


LECTURE  XV. 

THE  NATURE  OF  KNOWLEDGE.       EVOLUTION. 
The  Principle  of  Heredity  applied  to  the  Problem  of  Knowledge. 

The  problem  of  knowledge,  then,  cannot  be  solved  without 
reference  not  only  to  our  consciousness  but  to  our  organic 
structure  and  functions,  either  according  to  Kant's  view  of 
the  constitution  of  the  mind,  or  according  to  the  scientific 
point  of  view  which  takes  into  account  our  nervous 
system.  Now  here  we  see  how  entirely  the  philosophical 
question  of  knowledge  has  changed  in  consequence  of  our 
wider  scientific  view.  Evolution  has  given  the  problem 
quite  a  new  expression.  I  do  not  say  that  the  evolution 
of  our  physical  organisation  explains  consciousness,  but  it 
yields  us  a  statement  of  external  conditions.  Our  experience 
is  determined  from  the  first,  and  definitely  combined  in  certain 
ways.  Anything  more  inappropriate,  more  ludicrous  than 
the  tabula  rasa  theory,  with  its  implication  that  all  minds  are 
at  starting  alike  and,  if  exposed  to  the  same  conditions,  would 
all  develop  alike,  is  not  to  be  found.  Allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  predetermining  of  primitive  endowment :  aptitudes 
must  be  recognised,  as  Leibniz  saw  better  than  Locke. 
No  child's  knowledge  is  explicable  from  its  own  experience. 
This   no   doubt   involves   a    starting-point   somewhere,  but 

L    2 


148  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

scientific  explanation  does  not  pretend  to  give  absolute 
beginnings.  We  need  not  assume  the  primitive  endowment 
of  a  child  as  something  inexplicable.  Heredity  is  a  real  factor, 
and  accounts  for  facts  in  knowledge  which  Associationists 
cannot  explain.  Breed  was  always  allowed  to  count  for  some- 
thing, but  prior  to  Darwin  and  Mr.  Spencer  there  was  no 
formulated  theory  of  it.  The  organism,  more  especially  the 
nervous  system,  becomes  modified  by  a  change  of  environment. 
What  one  generation  acquires  in  the  way  of  adaptation  to 
environment  another  gets  the  benefit  of.  An  accommodation 
takes  place  in  the  individual  and  modifies  the  character  of  the 
progeny.  The  individual  inherits  the  experience,  or  the 
effects  of  the  experience,  of  the  race.  Mr.  Spencer,  it  is  true, 
is  not  so  effective  in  applying  it  as  he  makes  out :  he  should 
have  gone  to  school  under  Kant,  whose  is  the  insight  if  not 
the  power  of  explaining :  his  theory  of  knowledge  halts, 
because  he  fails  to  see  the  problem  of  knowledge  in  its  fullness. 
The  principle  of  heredity,  if  applied  intelligently,  would 
account  for  more  than  he  has  made  it  do.  By  it  we  can  not 
only  explain  the  difference  between  your  constitution  and 
mine,  but  we  can  partly  account  for  the  community  of  know- 
ledge by  the  fact  of  common  ancestry,  a  common  inheritance 
of  mental  and  nervous  constitution.  This  fact,  properly 
understood,  is  of  the  greatest  importance  in  explaining.  It 
is  a  dim  fore-feeling  of  this  that  we  get  in  Plato's  ideas 
had  in  a  prior  existence,  and  in  the  theory  of  innate  ideas 
generally,  Experience  has  gone  before  us.  It  is  quite 
evident  that  our  own  experience  does  not  determine  us  to 
perform  acts  we  do  perform  before  experience  can  teach 
us.  The  mere  study  of  the  individual  organism  will  give  no 
explanation  of  knowledge  as  we  find  it.  There  are  factors 
to   be   sought  outside  of  the  experience  of  the  individual. 


xv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  149 

This  does  not  cut  us  off  from  Experientialism,  but  it  does 
cut  us  off  from  Individualism.  Heredity  explains  both  the 
individual  element  in  the  conscious  living  organism  and  also 
its  element  of  relation  to  the  conscious  life  of  others. 

The  Social  Factor. 

When  we  have  made  every  allowance  for  heredity  in  the 
Evolutionist  sense,  and  for  experience  in  the  Associationist 
sense,  we  have  accounted  for  but  a  very  small  part  of  our 
knowledge.  What  the  knowledge  of  an  individual  comes  to 
be  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  accidental  experience  alone, 
nor  by  heredity,  nor  by  the  original  constitution  of  the  mind. 
There  is  something,  principally  speech,  passed  on  from 
generation  to  generation,  which  has  gone  on  increasing  as  it 
has  passed.  This  the  individual  finds  ready  for  him  to  take 
hold  of;  it  takes  hold  of  him,  and  through  this  we  have 
our  knowledge.  The  child  comes  into  the  world  in  a  social 
relation  ;  when  it  begins  to  act  for  itself,  then  it  is  that  it 
comes  under  the  influence  of  the  Social  Factor. 

No ;  the  question  of  knowledge  is  not  to  be  resolved  in 
terms  of  individualistic  experience.  The  eighteenth  century 
theorists  of  knowledge — Locke,  Hume,  Berkeley,  Kant — 
none  of  them  take  into  account  the  social  conditions  of  the 
individual.  Hegel,  the  great  Rationalist,  recognised  that 
man  has  his  being  determined  and  moulded  by  social  circum- 
stances. But  it  was  Comte  who  first  clearly  apprehended 
the  '  solidarity '  of  the  individual  in  society,  and  the  debt 
we  owe  to  our  fellows  and  especially  to  past  generations, 
not  by  way  of  organic  inheritance,  but  by  way  of  intercourse, 
and  chiefly  by  the  social  engine  of  thought  expressed  in 
language.  Lewes's  thought  too  was  impregnated  with  this 
doctrine.     It  was  he  who  brought  it  to  the  front  in  this 


150  Elements  of  General  Philosophy,        [Lect. 

country.  Man  is  no  mere  unit  with  independent  development, 
but  depends  for  that  development  on  his  environment  and 
the  overpowering  influence  of  social  tradition.  It  is  when 
he  has  passed  through  the  training  imposed  by  society  that 
he  first  begins  to  assert  himself. 

Speech  and  Knowledge. 

Now  this  social  influence,  I  say,  is  exerted  chiefly  by  the 
medium  of  language.  The  Nominalists,  e.g.  Hobbes,  Locke 
and  Hume,  denying  that  we  have  any,  or  any  save  very 
imperfect,  powers  of  general  thinking  except  by  means 
of  verbal  signs,  have  always  recognised  the  importance 
of  language.  But  they  were  mainly  concerned  with  the 
special  psychological  question,  '  how  we  think  generally.' 
They  did  not  discern  the  far  more  widely  pervading  function 
of  language.  Whatever  the  individual  develops  into  can  be 
shown  to  be  a  product  of  his  relations  with  others  through 
the  moulding  medium  of  language.  For  language  is  a 
natural  social  product  of  the  mind,  which  is  not  come  at 
or  elaborated  by  any  one  person,  but  consists  of  expressions 
caught  up  between  man  and  man  and  become  current. 
No  child  coming  into  being  is  allowed  to  follow  his  own 
bent,  save  in  a  limited  degree.  For  awhile  a  spontaneous 
language  is  allowed  free  course,  but  very  soon  progress  in 
language  consists  not  in  his  own  creations,  but  in  what  he 
shows  aptitude  in  getting  fiom  others.  Imitation  is  natural. 
Through  it  he  is  laid  hold  of  by  society  and  moulded  after  its 
kind.  For  the  language  that  is  its  chief  instrument  has  been 
developed  byaccumulated  deposits  of  the  countless  experiences 
of  the  society  of  the  past.  The  more  he  works  into  that 
language  the  more  he  adopts  what  transforms  his  whole 
being,  involving  as  it  does  an  entire  theory  of  the  universe. 


xv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  151 

The  simple  fact  of  an  active  verb  implying,  involving,  a  sub- 
ject and  object,  cause  and  effect,  and  the  like,  embodies  such 
a  theory,  and  becomes  a  way  of  interpreting  his  experience 
which  that  experience  itself  does  not  adequately  provide. 
Experience  is  interpreted  for  him,  in  spite  of  him,  so  as  to 
compel  his  explanations  into  the  course  they  take. 

Here  is,  for  the  individual,  a  non-empirical  factor  within 
sense ;  not  a  mere  system  of  sounds,  but  also  an  a  priori 
factor  of  knowledge.  But  not  on  Kantian  lines.  There 
is  no  need  to  fall  back  on  pure  intuitions  and  concepts 
that  cannot  be  accounted  for.  The  child  thinks  with  con- 
cepts formed  prior  to  its  own  experience,  concepts  which 
have  been  developed  and  which  were  in  past  times  different 
from  what  they  are. 

We  have  seen  that  the  notion  of  the  world  as  a  realm 
of  cause  and  effect  has  developed  with  the  human  race. 
That  language  has  moulded  and  dictated  its  development 
is  no  justification  of  Mill's  theory,  that  invariable  sequence 
teaches  us  to  distinguish  causal  action.  Relatively  to  the 
individual  the  concept  is  pure :  it  is  not  developed  by  him ; 
others  have  done  this  and  handed  it  on  ready  made.  Well 
then,  is  the  concept  absolutely  pure  from  the  first  ?  Was  it 
intuitive  ?  Or  has  it  been  developed  in  the  history  of  the 
race  ?  The  question  is  unanswerable :  and  yet  does  there 
not  lie  a  pretty  strong  suggestion  in  the  development  of 
languages  themselves,  with  systems  of  metaphysic  variously 
developed  in  each?  Kant  said  that  effect  and  cause  can 
never  have  been  developed  in  the  individual  or  in  the  race ; 
such  a  necessity  of  thought  as  that — never !  /  say,  the 
gradual  development  of  the  conviction  that  nature  is  a  realm 
of  law,  that  everything  is  caused,  is  a  historical  fact.  Even 
Aristotle's  mind,  as  I  pointed  out,  had  no  full  notion  of 


152  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

universal  causation;  some  things,  he  held,  happened  by 
chance,  causelessly.  Necessities  of  thought  can  be  explained 
in  terms  of  experience,  ;/we  let  experience  include  accreted 
racial  experience.  This  is  an  extension  of  Experientialism. 
Mr.  Spencer's  Heredity  or  '  organised  experience,'  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  fact  of  growing  language  on  the  other,  as 
an  impersonal  factor,  seem  to  go  much  further  to  explain 
knowledge  than  unbelievers  think.  Scientific  psychological 
data,  if  sound  and  wide,  will  answer  philosophical  questions. 

In  Conclusion. 

One  word  more.  Kant's  importance  in  the  history  of 
philosophy  can  never  be  overrated,  and,  in  his  own  line,  no 
one  can  go  beyond  him.  No  serious  study  of  him  is  ever  lost, 
for  through  no  thinker  can  the  student  be  so  well  led  into 
the  heart  of  the  philosophical  questions  of  the  day.  He 
is  the  first  philosopher  who  fully  understood  the  complexity  of 
the  problem  of  knowledge,  however  mystical  his  ultimate  as- 
sumptions may  appear  in  the  light  of  the  advance  of  science. 
Working  on  independent  lines,  although  a  Rationalist,  he  went 
as  far  in  the  direction  of  reconciliation  between  the  two 
opposed  standpoints  as  was  possible  a  century  ago. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  great  merit  of  the  English 
school  that,  with  its  feet  firmly  planted  on  psychological 
ground,  it  has  answered  as  to  the  nature  of  knowledge  in 
conformity  with  this  ground.  It  is  true  that  biological  advance 
has  rendered  for  ever  impossible  the  older  Experientialist 
position,  that  knowledge  with  its  objectivity,  its  universality, 
its  necessity,  has  to  be  acquired  by  every  individual  for 
himself,  in  the  course  of  his  own  experience,  from  the  begin- 
ning. But  the  Experientialism  of  to-day  is  far  in  advance 
of  that  of  the  last  century.     We  have  advanced  all  round, 


xv.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  153 

e.  g.  psychologically,  by  the  distinction  drawn  between  active 
sense  and  passive  sense — a  discovery  which  has  completely 
altered  the  state  of  the  question.  Thus  the  means  are  now 
present  for  working  out  a  systematic  theory  of  knowledge 
from  the  point  of  view  of  modern  Experientialism.  Philosophy 
is  not  science,  but  its  problems  should  be  solved  as  far  as 
possible  from  a  scientific  point  of  view. 


For  Lecture  XVI  read  :— 
Bain,     p.  cit.    '  The  ries   of  a   Material   World '  (p.   203). 
Mill,  Examination  of  Hamilton' s  Philosophy,  ch.  xi.  'The  Psycho- 
logical Theory  of  the  Belief  in  an  External  World.' 
Hamilton,  Works  o/Reid,  Notes  Cand  D. 
Berkeley,  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge. 


LECTURE   XVI. 

THE   PERCEPTION   OF   AN   EXTERNAL    (OR   MATERIAL)   WORLD. 

Berkeley's  Influence. 

With  this  our  third  problem  we  have  been  dealing  more 
or  less  by  implication.  In  considering  how  we  come  by 
our  knowledge,  what  are  the  psychological  factors  in  our 
cognition,  it  only  remained  to  add  the  special  emphasis — know- 
ledge, cognition,  of  objects.  Objectivity  as  applied  to  percepts 
is  only  a  case  of  the  objectivity  of  knowledge.  What  account 
can  we  give  of  the  existence,  in  our  system  of  knowledge, 
of  an  external,  extended,  material  world?  Is  there  a  real 
pillar  corresponding  to  my  individual  percept  of  it?  The 
question  is  specially  an  English  one,  and  it  was  Berkeley 
who  first  gave  this  direction  to  English  thought.  The 
same  Berkeley  who  denied  the  existence  of  things  of 
sense,  as  a  philosopher  and  Immaterialist,  was  the  firsf 
man  to  begin  a  perfectly  scientific  doctrine  of  sense-per- 
ception as  a  psychologist.  He  approached  the  philosophical 
question  through  his  psychology.  Yet  although  he  was 
foremost  in  the  psychology  of  his  century  and  made  great 
positive  additions  to  science,  he  is  almost  the  only  first- 
rate   modern    thinker   who    set    to   work   with    a    definite 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  155 

religious  and  even  theological  purpose ;  for  the  note  of 
modern  philosophy  is  that  it  leaves  out  religion  as  such  in 
its  explanations.  I  said  'first-rate,'  for  some  second-rate 
thinkers,  e.  g.  Butler,  did  have  a  religious  purpose ;  whereas 
Berkeley  psychologised  for  philosophy,  and  philosophised 
for  theology. 

Before  Berkeley. 

Descartes'  position  was  that  mind  and  matter  are  utterly 
differentiated,  the  former  by  thought,  the  latter  by  extension. 
Mind  exists  and  thinks  and  is  not  extended.  Matter  exists 
and  is  extended  and  does  not  think.  The  resultant  problem 
was,  How,  in  the  human  constitution,  can  mind  be  conjoined 
with  a  body  ?  Further :  if  matter  exists  in  so  far  as  it  is  ex- 
tended, is  there  or  is  there  not  much  in  material  things  that 
can  be  proved  not  to  exist  in  the  same  sense,  e.  g.  colour, 
sound,  &c  ? 

Locke  was  not,  like  Descartes,  a  dogmatic  metaphysician 
— at  least,  not  to  the  same  extent.  Philosophy  with  Des- 
cartes was  theory  of  being,  and  his  fundamental  assumption 
was  substance  either  extended  or  thinking.  With  Locke 
it  tended  to  become  theory  of  knowledge,  constructed  if  not 
on  a  psychological  basis,  at  least  in  a  psychological  spirit. 
Nevertheless  Locke's  psychological  view  of  external  things 
is  largely  coloured  by  Cartesian  metaphysical  dogmatism. 
He  asserted  at  times  the  existence  of  matter  in  a  manner 
as  absolute  as  that  of  the  growing  materialistic  science  of 
his  day.  Locke's  doctrine  of  matter  as  known  was  that, 
of  our  ideas  of  external  things,  some  correspond  to  qualities 
really  existing  in  external  bodies,  while  some  are  of  qualities 
wrongly  imputed  by  us  to  those  bodies,  and  which  have  no 
objective  existence.  The  former  are  'extension,  figure, 
motion,  rest,  solidity  or  impenetrability,  and  number;'   the 


156  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

latter  are  '  all  other  sensible  qualities,  as  colours,  sounds, 
tastes,  and  so  forth1.'  Those  he  calls  primary,  these, 
secondary  qualities.  The  latter  are  not  in  things,  but 
are  sensations  of  ours  interpreted  as  absolute  qualities  of 
things.  Primary  qualities  exist  absolutely,  but  of  them 
too  we  have  sensible  apprehension.  These  primary  and 
secondary  qualities  were  the  equivalents  of  Aristotle's  Com- 
mon and  Special  Sensibles.  The  special  sensibles  were 
the  impressions  conveyed  each  by  a  special  sense  to  con- 
sciousness, but  the  common  sensibles,  e.  g.  extension, 
were  the  result  of  a  number  of  senses  being  affected 
together,  or  rather  of  what  Aristotle  called  common  sense, 
a  sense  over  and  above  the  special  senses.  Now  Locke 
thought  of  extension  only  as  something  apprehensible  by 
different  senses  at  the  same  time,  and  so  he  translated 
common  sensibles  into  primary  qualities,  holding  that  all 
those  aspects  thus  apprehended  are  fundamental  or  primary, 
as  representing  qualities  of  objects  as  they  really  are.  Locke 
was  bound  to  assume  an  absolute  matter  in  which  these 
qualities  cohered.  But  if  primary  qualities  are  such  as  we 
have  sensible  apprehension  of,  they  are  not  so  different  from 
secondary  qualities. 

Berkeley  on  Locke. 
It  was  here  that  Berkeley  stepped  in  and  broke  up  this 
absolute  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
of  matter.  He  contended  that  the  former  are  as  much 
explainable  in  terms  of  ideas  as  the  latter.  All  are  agreed 
that  colour,  sound,  heat,  &c,  are  things  we  impute  to  matter 
on  the  strength  of  our  sensible  experience.  Berkeley  main- 
tained that  this  was  equally  and  in  the  same  way  true  of 

1  Locke,  Essay,  Bk.  II,  ch.  viii;    Berkeley,  Principles  of  Human 
Knowledge,  Pt.  I,  §  9. 


xvl]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  157 

the  former.  They  also  are  ideas,  and  just  as  little  repre- 
sentative of  any  reality  in  matter  as  colour,  sound,  &c.,  are. 
If  colour  is  something  we  impute  to  external  things,  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  we  impute  extension  to  them  also.  All 
qualities  of  things,  primary  as  well  as  secondary,  are  for 
philosophy  phenomenal. 

Berkeley's  Theory  of  Matter. 

Now  this  was  Berkeley's  reason  for  denying  that  material 
things  exist  at  all  apart  from  mind.  He  regards  them  as 
mere  aggregates  of  sensations.  All  that  we  mean  by  matter 
is  uniformity  of  sense-experience.  All  that  absolutely  exists 
is  mind.  External  things  only  exist  for  mind.  Esse  est 
percipi.  Nothing  can  be  except  as  perceived.  Being,  apart 
from  being  perceived,  is  '  a  direct  repugnancy  and  altogether 
inconceivable.'  '  The  absolute  existence  of  unthinking  things 
are  words  without  a  meaning,  or  which  include  a  contradic- 
tion V  As  we  know  everything  through  our  senses,  and 
cannot  know  in  any  other  way,  it  follows  that  nothing 
perceived  is  absolute,  and  that  matter  can  only  exist  if 
the  sense  is  there.  Berkeley  does  not  get  rid  of  the  reality 
to  each  perceiving  mind  of  the  external  world,  but  he  does 
claim  to  have  got  rid  of  its  absolute  reality,  i.  e.  of  its  existence 
apart  from  perceiving  minds.  Granted  the  existence  of 
mind,  there  is  nothing  that  we  cannot  express  as  orderly 
experience  of  mind. 

Such  was  Berkeley's  doctrine  of  Immaterialism — a  less 
ambiguous    term    than    Idealism — by    which    he    thought, 

1  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  Pt.  I,  §§  17,  24.  'A  "  contradic- 
tion "  if  it  means  that  sensible  objects  are  at  once  .  .  .  phenomenal 
and  yet  not  phenomenal.'  Fraser's  Selections  front  Berkeley,  3rd  ed. 
pp.  48)  53  note.— Ed. 


158  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

in  a  community  of  pure  Materialists,  to  get  rid  of  the 
matter  which  was  their  one  fundamental  assumption,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  confute  the  half-hearted  dogmatism 
of  Locke.  Berkeley  was  born  in  the  century  which  saw 
the  beginning  of  modern  science,  and  at  the  end  of  it,  when 
that  science  was  tending  to  be  very  materialistic.  Matter 
was  not  only  assumed,  for  science  as  for  the  practical 
purposes  of  life,  as  an  absolute,  as  something  extended 
and  consisting  of  minute  invisible  parts  having  motion  in 
relation  to  each  other — a  fact  which  accounted  for  colour, 
sound,  heat,  &c— but  was  posited  as  the  one  thing  that 
really  did  exist.  Locke,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  seen, 
allowed  only  a  partial  accounting  for  matter  as  menial 
construction.  Berkeley  contended  that,  if  it  can  be  shown 
that  object  is  a  psychological  construction  in  regard  to  its 
secondary  qualities,  it  is  equally  a  psychological  construction 
in  regard  to  its  primary  qualities.  We  are  not  to  regard  our 
senses  as  giving  absolute  copies,  as  Locke  did,  of  objects  ;  we 
must  explain  how  objects  come  to  appear  extended,  figured, 
and  moved  just  as  much  as  how  they  appear  coloured,  heated, 
and  so  forth.  This  if  was  Berkeley's  great  merit  to  be  the 
first  to  put  forward. 

Beikeley  fails  in  legitimate  Psychological  Explanation. 

The  psychologist  has  no  right  to  assume  object,  viz.  the 
object  he  is  going  to  explain.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  that 
the  psychologist,  beginning  his  scientific  procedure  with  an 
account  of  the  senses,  has  no  right  to  assume  an  external 
world  affecting  his  body  and  senses.  He  is  bound,  for 
instance,  to  assume  the  sun  and  his  own  eye  before  he  can 
give  any  account  of  sense-experience  in  regard  to  vision. 
Thinkers  of  the  Hegelian,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  the 


xvi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  159 

neo-Kantian,  school  of  Green  are  constantly  insisting  that 
the  psychologist  assumes  what  he  afterwards  professes  to 
explain,  and  that  it  is  only  thus  that  he  contrives  to  explain. 
Green  made  out  very  cleverly  that  this  was  the  case  with 
Locke,  but  though  the  charge  is  here  well  founded,  it  is  not 
so  when  made  against  philosophers  who  seek  to  reason  on 
a  psychological  basis.  It  is  one  thing  to  assume  sun  and  eye 
in  order  to  get  language  to  explain  sensation ;  it  is  another 
to  assume  that  we  have  explained  what  the  sun  ultimately  is. 
We  go  on  afterwards  as  philosophers  to  explain  in  subjective 
terms  the  very  things  which  as  psychologists  we  were  bound 
to  assume,  and  I  say  that  Berkeley's  great  merit  was  to  see 
that  nothing  was  present  in  primary  qualities  of  object  which 
we  cannot  explain.  But  then  he  did  not  go  on  to  give  this 
explanation :  he  did  not  see  that  primary  qualities  are  dif- 
ferent from  secondary,  and  why  they  are  so.  Why  are  some 
forms  of  our  experience  of  more  account  for  making  up  our 
knowledge  of  that  pillar  than  others  ? 

Berkeley's  Fundamental  Assumption. 

So  far  Berkeley's  statements  have  appeared  as  negative 
criticism,  but  he  had  constructive  aims.  He  felt  it  necessary 
to  give  a  consistent  theory  of  things,  a  theory  which  would 
sufficiently  explain  the  facts  of  science  and  also  satisfy  all  the 
demands  of  religious  conceptions  and  of  every-day  experi- 
ence. Now  the  fundamental  necessary  assumption  on  which 
he  grounds  his  theory  is  the  existence  of  one  infinite  spirit 
and  other  finite  spirits.  What  we  call  Nature  is  only  a  mere 
orderly  sequence  of  '  ideas,'  and  these  are  brought  to  pass 
by  the  real  causation  of  the  infinite  spirit  in  the  minds  of 
finite  spirits,  these  being  so  far  like  the  infinite  spirit  that 
they  too  can  have  ideas. 


160  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

After  Berkeley.     Hume. 

Berkeley's  argument  against  the  validity  of  the  distinction 
between  primary  and  secondary  qualities  was  completely 
accepted  by  Hume.  He  did  not  dwell  on  this  side  of  the 
problem,  regarding  it  as  finally  made  out  that,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  psychology,  or,  as  he  would  have  expressed 
it,  of  philosophical  consideration,  there  was  no  ultimate 
ground  for  Locke's  division.  But  he  went  on  to  assert  that, 
on  the  same  grounds  on  which  Berkeley  had  declared  that 
beyond  ideas  aggregated  in  certain  ways  we  could  get  no 
knowledge  of  matter,  it  would  be  no  less  incontestably 
established  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  below  ideas,  or 
subjective  states  in  general,  or  subjective  phenomenal  experi- 
ence, to  the  existence  of  mind.  Just  as  matter  was  resolved 
by  Berkeley  into  ideas  expressed  in  certain  ways,  so  by  the 
same  kind  of  resolution  was  mind  reduced  by  Hume  to  what 
we  may  call  a  phenomenal  expression. 

Hume  worked  this  out  as  a  part  of  his  general  dialectic, 
in  which  he  was  really  concerned  not  to  set  up  any  positive 
theory  of  knowledge,  but  rather  to  follow  the  bent  of  his 
mind  and  show  that  when  philosophers  attempted  from  their 
reasoning  to  make  out  the  ultimate  nature  of  things  and 
dogmatically  to  determine  all  that  is,  they  were  going  a  great 
deal  beyond  the  legitimate  sphere  of  knowledge.  His  theory 
of  Substance  is  the  first  serious  and  anything  like  sufficient 
attempt  to  give  a  psychological  explanation.  He  dwells 
especially  upon  the  amount  of  representation  (work  of 
imagination)  involved  in  objective  perception,  but  fails  in 
not  distinguishing  either  the  psychological  factor  of  muscular 
activity,  as  lying  at  the  basis  of  all  objective  synthesis,  or 
the  '  social  factor.'  As  a  positive  theory  it  is  to  be  described 
as   an   inadequately   filled-in    Phenomenalism.      I   am    not 


xvi.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  161 

concerned  here  to  defend  Hume's  argument,  which  to  me 
is  imperfect  in  the  last  degree.  But  it  is  irrefutably  true  in 
maintaining  that  all  our  knowledge,  whether  of  matter  or  of 
mind,  is  confined  to  phenomenal  aspects.  Of  either,  save 
in  their  phenomenal  aspects,  we  know  nothing. 

Kant's  Idealism. 

Now  Hume  argued  sceptically,  so  as  to  imply  that  human 
knowledge  was  next  to  nothing.  Kant,  on  the  other  hand, 
while  he  accepted  Hume's  general  position  in  this  matter, 
was  of  those  who  hold  that  human  knowledge  is  of  a  very 
positive  nature.  Kant  distinctly  declared  that  all  our  know- 
ledge was  of  phenomena.  He  declared  indeed  that  for  our 
knowledge  of  physical  phenomena  we  are  not  wholly  depen- 
dent upon  experience,  inasmuch  as  we  can  make  a  priori 
determinations  about  nature;  nevertheless  these  determina- 
tions are  always  about  nature  as  phenomenal.  But  in  regard 
to  our  knowledge  of  mind,  we  are  positively  confined  to 
experience.  However  much  we  ascribe  our  subjective  states 
to  an  Ego,  we  commit  a  'paralogism'  if  we  claim  to  know 
mind  otherwise  than  in  its  manifestations. 

Kant  takes  up  the  question  in  quite  a  different  way  from 
the  English  thinkers.  He  is  concerned  mainly  with  the 
general  theory  of  knowledge,  within  which  theory  he  has 
of  course  a  view  about  the  material  world  as  such,  And 
that  view  I  bring  into  relation  not  only  with  Hume,  but  also 
with  Berkeley.  Kant  agrees  with  the  latter  in  refusing  to 
allow  the  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities, 
declaring  that  the  former  are — to  use  his  own  terms — just 
as  subjective  or  phenomenal  as  the  latter.  And  though  he 
has  by  no  means  the  same  explanation  of  extension  as 
Berkeley,   though  he  does  not  declare,   as    Berkeley   does, 

H 


162  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

that  for  our  apprehension  of  extension  we  are  dependent 
entirely  upon  experience,  and  that  it  is  developed  by  associa- 
tion of  touches  and  sights,  yet  he,  even  more  expressly 
than  Berkeley,  declares  that  the  extension  of  things  is  no 
real  objective  quality  of  them.  For,  as  we  saw,  he  declares 
that  space  is  a  mere  subjective  form  of  sensibility.  According 
to  Kant  there  is  positively  nothing  in  our  perception  of  this 
table  which  is  not  subjective.  Kant  in  this  respect  is  an 
Idealist — not  an  empirical  Idealist,  since  he  does  not  suppose 
that  all  the  (subjective)  elements  into  which  we  could  analyse 
this  table  are  such  as  come  to  us  by  way  of  experience. 
And  he  even  accuses  Berkeley's  Idealism  of  making  matter 
out  to  be  illusory  because  it  is  phenomenal,  showing  herein 
a  very  imperfect  apprehension  of  the  latter's  theory. 

Kanfs  Realism. 
But  Kant  does  not  rest  in  this  Idealism.  Beyond  pheno- 
mena knowledge,  for  him,  cannot  go;  nevertheless  he  declared 
that  phenomena  imply  an  underlying  reality  which  he  called 
the  thing  in  itself,  or  noiimenon.  The  former  is  the  less 
misleading  term,  since  noiimenon  suggests  a  knowing 
subject  no  less  than  phenomenon.  Thing-in-itself,  then, 
for  him  underlay  the  double  stream  of  experience,  subjective 
and  objective,  constituting  probably  a  single  existence  or 
entity,  if  that  might  be  called  existence  or  entity  which  he 
admitted  was  an  unknown  quantity.  Self  as  a  particular 
entity  with  a  possibly  immortal  future  we  could  hold  only 
as  a  moral  conviction. 

The  Ding  an  sich  an  inconsistent  Theory. 

Now  Kant  declared  that  all  things  in  themselves  are  in 
relation  to,  or  ideas  of,  'pure  reason;'  it  is  on  the  ground 


XVI.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  163 

of  this  pure  reason  that  we  hold  them  to  exist ;  in  other 
words,  it  is  a  necessity  of  reason  that  gives  a  foundation  for 
noiimena.  But  then  he  is  placed  under  this  difficulty  : 
if  it  is  upon  the  ground  of  reason  that  we  assert  these  things 
to  exist,  have  we  any  rational  knowledge  of  them  ?  This 
he  was  forward  to  deny,  saying  that  through  reason  as  such 
no  knowledge  proper  is  possible.  In  the  same  breath,  then, 
in  which  he  posits,  as  beyond  phenomena,  the  thing  in  itself 
as  what  cannot  be  theoretically  known,  he  assumes  it  as  the 
cause  of  sensations  in  us,  which  we  group  and  interpret 
in  various  ways  as  knowledge.  He  supposed  therefore  that 
when  we  have  a  sensation,  say,  of  colour,  received  according 
to  the  law  of  our  being  in  time  and  space,  and  worked 
up  into  knowledge  according  to  the  categories  or  laws  of 
the  understanding,  this  phenomenon  of  colour  was  really 
explicable  from  a  thing  in  itself,  the  character  of  which 
he  did  not  pretend  further  to  define,  which  he  most  con- 
fidently asserted  was  not  in  space  or  time,  nor  subject  to 
the  categories,  and  yet  to  which  he  applied  the  category 
of  cause.  This  seems  to  me  the  fundamental  inconsistency 
in  his  philosophy. 

ReicTs  and  Hamilton  s  Eclecticism. 

I  now  come  to  the  English  stream  of  thought  to  show 
what  followed  upon  Hume's  scepticism.  Reid,  while  he 
contested  Hume's  philosophy  altogether  and,  like  Kant, 
set  up  a  general  theory  of  knowledge,  was  more  especially 
moved  I©  criticise  both  Berkeley  and  Hume  in  their  theories 
of  the  external  world.  His  whole  philosophy  was  accom- 
modated to  his  own  theory  of  this  problem.  And  his  theory 
is  that,  however  philosophers  may  give  a  subjective  expres- 
sion to  the  qualities  of  matter,  yet  at  the  last  the  philosophical 


164  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

position  should  be  that  of  common  sense,  namely,  that 
underneath  qualities  there  is  a  real  entity  existing  apart  from 
the  mind.  You  do  not  want,  he  said,  a  theory  of  the 
external  world.  Open  your  eyes  and  see  it !  In  the  very 
fact  of  perception  there  is  a  present  apprehension  both  of 
subject  and  of  object,  opposed  entities,  real  existences.  This 
view  is  also  called  Natural  Realism  and  Natural  Dualism, 
because  it  agrees  with  the  common  view.  It  may  be  said 
that  this  after  all  is  only  Kantianism,  with  its  assertion 
of  our  conviction  that  things  exist  in  themselves.  But  Reid 
went  further  and  declared,  as  against  Berkeley  and  Hume, 
that,  however  it  might  be  with  secondary  qualities — and 
these  he  gave  up — this  real  entity  outside  of  us  had  as 
inherent  qualities  of  its  own  those  called  primary.  Thus 
he  directly  took  up  the  position  declared  by  Berkeley  to  be 
untenable. 

But  the  champion  of  common  sense  was,  as  Hamilton 
pointed  out  (v.  p.  820  of  his  edition  of  Reid),  by  no  means 
always  consistent  with  himself.  At  times  he  declared  that 
on  the  ground  of  common  sense  real  things  exist  outside 
of  us,  with  qualities  of  extension  and  so  forth ;  at  other  times 
he  falls  back  upon  the  position  which  Hamilton  called 
Representationism,  namely,  that  our  sensible  apprehension 
of  things,  our  mental  experience,  is  a  mere  substitute  or 
representative  for  a  reality  beyond,  for  which  we  cannot 
find  an  expression — that  both  primary  and  secondary  qualities, 
instead  of  being  at  once  subjective  and  objective  facts,  or 
in  other  words  mental  experience  and  real  qualities,  merely 
represent  that  ultimate  undefinable  reality. 

And  while  I  bring  here  no  charge  against  Reid  that  is  not 
brought  against  him  by  his  follower  Hamilton,  I  bring  this 
further   charge   against    both,   that   they    depart    from    the 


xvl]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  165 

position  of  common  sense  to  the  extent  of  depriving  matter 
of  all  secondary  qualities.  Now  it  is  unquestionable  that, 
in  the  apprehension  of  every-day  life,  we  ascribe  colour  as 
confidently  to  external  things  as  we  ascribe  form.  If  in 
philosophising  we  are  to  go  by  common  sense  at  all,  we 
must  go  by  it  altogether.  This  reserve  then  is  objectionable 
and  opens  their  whole  theory  to  doubt.  Hamilton  often 
says  that  if  the  testimony  of  consciousness  is  false  in  one 
thing  it  is  false  in  everything.  But  my  consciousness  gives 
me  the  same  evidence  for  the  secondary  as  for  the  primary 
qualities.  His  eclecticism  shows  that  the  views  of  '  the  man 
in  the  street'  are  not  necessarily  correct.  And  his  theory 
of  the  immediateness  and  intuitiveness  of  our  knowledge  of 
an  external  world  involve  an  absolute  element  that  is  at 
variance  with  the  philosophical  doctrine  of  the  Relativity  of 
Knowledge 1 — '  Everything  known  is  only  known  in  relation 
to  a  knowing  mind' — which  he  assents  to  and  asserts. 

We  cannot  take  either  common  sense  or  consciousness  as 
our  ultimate  referendum,  and  then  accept  or  reject  this  or 
that  in  its  testimony  as  we  please.  My  opinion  is  that  what- 
ever common  sense  may  say,  it  is  common  sense  that  says 
it,  and  common  sense  is  one  thing  and  philosophic  insight 
another. 

Fernet  in  this  generation  has  with  very  great  force  done 
over  again  the  work  accomplished  by  Berkeley  in  the  last 
century.  He  has  done  it,  if  not  in  the  full  light  of  modern 
psychology,  and  rather  in  a  metaphysical  than  a  psychological 
way,  yet  with  a  force  of  thought  and  expression  not  to  be 
surpassed.  He  may  be  studied  either  in  his  Institutes  0/ 
Mclaphysic  or  his  Posthumous  Works. 

1  Distinguish  from  the  psychological  theory  of  Relativity,  viz.  in 
knowing  a  thing  we  know  it  as  distinct  from  something  else. 


166  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Spencerian  '  Transfigured  Realism.' 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  Transfigured  Realism  (as  he  him- 
self classes  it)  is  really  nothing  more  than  what,  in  Hamilton's 
classification  of  theories  of  External  Perception,  is  called 
Cosmothetic  Idealism.  Mr.  Spencer  himself,  it  is  true,  says, 
Realist  I  am,  only  not  a  crude  Realist,  i.  e.  with  the  Realism 
of  popular  opinion  which  imputes  all  my  special  sensations 
to  things  outside  of  me.  But  he  goes  further  and,  like  Kant, 
denies  that  even  primary  qualities  are  inherent  in  real  sub- 
stances, noiimena,  or  things  in  themselves.  And  he  ends  by 
saying,  not  professedly  in  the  language  of  common  sense, 
which  he  rather  scouts,  and  yet  in  language  which  practically 
comes  to  that,  that  we  have  a  fundamental  certainty,  the 
deepest  certainty  of  our  being,  that  object  exists  as  opposed 
to  subject,  and  subject  exists  as  opposed  to  object.  He  does 
not,  like  Hamilton,  insist  on  the  essence  of  object  being 
extension,  but  he  declares  that  in  any  act  of  perception 
there  is  involved  the  ultimate  certainty  that  there  is  an  object 
outside  of  and  apart  from  the  percipient. 

Now  if  a  thinker  like,  e.  g.  Hamilton  or  Reid  asserts  this 
opposition  of  object  and  subject  with  the  view  of  establishing 
a  duality  of  substances,  I  can  understand  the  position  and 
see  the  force  of  it.  This  is  what  we  certainly  do  assume  in 
daily  life,  and  it  is  open  for  any  philosopher  to  say  that  his 
object  is  to  give  a  philosophical  expression  to  that  assump- 
tion. But  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Spencer,  who  scouts  ihe  notion 
of  a  human  being  consisting  of  two  entities,  mind  and  body, 
mutually  opposed,  all  the  pother  that  he  makes  on  this 
point  (in  ch.  xviii  of  Vol.  II  of  his  Psychology)  seems  to 
me,  I  must  confess,  to  come  to  no  more  than  much  ado 
about  nothing.  Why  he  should  be  so  anxious  to  make  out 
an  opposition  of  object  and  subject  outside  of  conscious- 


xvi.]  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  167 

ness  to  explain  what  is  in  consciousness  I  cannot,  from  his 
point  of  view,  for  a  moment  understand.  Take  the  passage : 
1  Realism,  then,  would  be  positively  justified  even  were  the 
genesis  of  this  consciousness  of  existence  beyond  conscious- 
ness inexplicable '  (ch.  xix).  I  say  that  this  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  and  so  much  so,  that  when  he  comes  afterwards  to 
give  an  explanation  of  this  consciousness  of  existence  out  of 
consciousness,  it  turns  out  to  be  after  all  altogether  in  terms 
of  consciousness  and  he  has  not  got  to  it  at  all !  He  has 
only  got  consciousness  of  existence  that  is  in  consciousness. 


For  Lecture  XVII  read: — 

Bain,  op.  cit.  '  Perception  of  a  Material  World,'  pp.  197  et  seq. 

The  student  may  with  profit  consult  also  Leibniz's  essays  LaMonadch 
logie  and  Principes  de  la  Nature  et  de  la  Grace  fonde's  en  Raison 
(CEuvres,  ed.  Paul  Janet,  vol.  ii.  pp.  594-617). — Ed. 


LECTURE   XVII. 

THE    PERCEPTION    OF   AN    EXTERNAL   (OR    MATERIAL) 

world  {continued). 
The  Circle  of  Consciousness. 

For  my  own  part  I  agree  in  this  matter  essentially  with 
Professor  Bain  and  also  with  Mill.  I  hold  with  them,  with 
Berkeley,  Ferrier  and  others,  that  outside  of  the  circle  of  our 
consciousness  it  is  perfectly  impossible  to  get.  Mr.  Spencer 
aims  at  doing  so,  at  getting  a  consciousness  of  object  outside 
of  consciousness,  claiming  this  as  a  more  certain,  funda- 
mental testimony  of  consciousness  than  anything  else.  I 
cannot  understand  the  words.  I  do  not  see  how  we  can 
work  with  a  conception  like  that.  I  go  further.  In  daily  life 
we  do  work  with  such  a  conception,  we  do  really  suppose 
things  to  be  outside  of  us  with  qualities  that  demonstrably 
can  not  be  outside  of  us.  But  however  we  may  'in  the 
street'  get  on  with  this,  from  the  point  of  view  of  philo- 
sophical consideration  I  cannot  but  call  it  with  Berkeley 
a  self-contradiction,  and  I  frankly  confess  that  I  do  not 
pretend  to  give  any  account  of  an  object  not  in  conscious- 
ness, nor  of  a  subject  not  in  consciousness.  I  cannot  help 
it."  I  would  if  I  could ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  done. 
The  whole  of  this  discussion  can  take  place  only  from  the 
point  of  view  of  consciousness,  and  we  can  never  get  away 
from  that  point  of  view.  What  is  the  good  of  trying  to  get 
away  from  it  and  pretending  by  mere  words  that  we  do  so  ? 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  169 

That  we  do  so  in  daily  life  does  not  alter  the  philosophical 
truth  of  the  matter.  Any  object  that  I  can  make  out  in  the 
universe,  I  cannot  pretend  to  make  out  except  with  regard 
to  my  mind.  So  Professor  Bain  (p.  197): — 'There  is  no 
such  thing  known  as  a  tree  wholly  detached  from  perception/ 
&c.  But  within  that  circle  I  am  anxious  to  make  out — and 
more  anxious  than  either  he  or  Mill,  for  I  think  the  treatment 
in  both  writers  is  incomplete — that  there  is  an  opposition 
of  what  cannot  better  be  expressed  than  by  'subject'  and 
'object.'  And  I  think  that  this  is  an  opposition  which 
should  find  expression  in  such  terms  as  psychological  inquiry 
can  justify,  and  such  as,  in  respect  of  philosophical  import, 
may  be  admitted  to  contain  the  ultimate  rationale  of  what 
undoubtedly  is  the  fact  in  our  common  every-day  experience, 
the  fact  that  we  do  posit  mind  and  matter  as  independent 
existences  apart  from  consciousness,  out  of  consciousness,  or 
even  without  the  slightest  reference  thereto.  In  common  life 
when  we  see  anything  we  usually  leave  ourselves  entirely  out 
of  account.  It  never  for  a  moment  occurs  to  us  that  we 
have  anything  to  do  with  it. 

Berkeley  claimed  that  his  Idealism  really  expressed  the 
thought  of  people  in  common :  that  to  the  popular  mind 
external  object  is  really  whatever  can  be  felt,  seen,  &c,  of 
it1,  and  that  the  kind  of  abstract  substance  supposed  by 
metaphysicians  to  underlie  the  qualities  of  matter  is  really 
made  no  account  of  in  the  popular  conception.  There  is 
some  foundation  for  his  view.     If  we  abstract  from  our  table 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.  I,  §  6 :  '  Some  truths  there  are  so  near  and  obvious  to 
the  mind  that  a  man  need  only  open  his  eyes  to  see  them.  Such 
.  .  .  that  all  the  choir  of  heaven  and  furniture  of  the  earth  .  .  .  have 
not  any  subsistence  without  a  mind — that  their  being  is  to  be  perceived 
or  known,'  Sec. — Ed. 


170  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

all  its  qualities  and  yet  retain  for  it  a  metaphysical  entity,  this 
is  clearly  what  the  popular  mind  cannot  or  does  not  take 
account  of.  Still  I  do  not  think  what  Berkeley  said  is  correct. 
However  true  it  may  be  that  the  popular  mind  expresses  in 
terms  of  sensation  the  character  of  external  things,  I  think 
it  is  unquestionable  that,  in  the  popular  apprehension  of  us 
all,  we  do  ascribe  a  perfectly  independent  existence  to  these 
aggregates.  Berkeley  said,  to  be  is  to  be  perceived.  This 
cannot  be  said  to  be  the  popular  apprehension.  Perception 
is  an  accident  in  the  popular  mind.  Commonly  we  conceive 
the  qualities  as  real  objective  qualities  of  a  real  existing  thing. 
And  I  think  that  this  popular  apprehension  must  find  its 
explanation.  If  psychology  leads  us  to  take  up  another 
position  from  that  of  common  sense,  it  is  bound  to  give 
some  kind  of  explanation  of  this.  If  it  holds  that  there  is 
an  unwarrantable  assumption  in  these  things,  it  must  yet 
give  some  explanation  of  how  it  came  to  be  made.  I  am 
not  saying  that  we  are  bound  to  do  this  for  perceptions  of 
daily  life.  If  we  did,  we  should  not  get  on  as  well  as  we 
do.  Human  action,  human  life,  is  one  thing,  philosophical 
insight,  I  repeat,  is  another.  I  have  no  disposition  to  hide 
the  difficulties  of  the  case,  but  I  think  that  psychology  should 
be  able  not  only  to  give  a  scientific  explanation  of  subject 
in  relation  to  object  circumspectly  expressed,  but  also  to 
explain  how  it  is  that  this  opposition  of  subject  and  object 
within  consciousness  becomes  aggrandised  into  an  opposition 
of  mind  and  matter  apart  from  each  other,  and  which, 
generally  speaking,  rather  leaves  mind  out  of  account  and 
ascribes  to  matter,  erroneously  as  I  think,  an  absolute  exist- 
ence. For  this  is  the  way  of  the,  to  me,  utterly  unphilo- 
sophical  doctrine  of  Materialism :  it  assumes  matter  to  be 
a  real  existence  apart  from  mind,  and  then  pretends  from 


xvil]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  171 

this  to  explain  mind.  The  most  monstrous  inversion  of  the 
rational  course  that  can  possibly  be  conceived  !  First  through 
mind  to  get  a  notion  of  matter,  then  to  objectify  it  and  give 
it  absolute  existence,  and  then  from  this  to  explain  mind ! 
The  very  term  '  phenomenon '  used  in  science  implies  that 
the  assumptions  it  makes  are  not  ultimate. 

Object  developed  by  way  of  Active  Sense. 

Now  I  think  that  Professor  Bain,  better  than  many  thinkers, 
lays  hold  of  that  element  of  difference,  that  means  of 
differentiation  within  the  circle  of  consciousness  through 
which  the  opposition  of  object  and  subject  is  developed. 
He  lays  his  finger  on  this  when  he  brings  out,  first,  as  the 
fundamental  element  in  the  object-consciousness,  the  differ- 
ence in  our  experience  between  passive  sensations  and 
consciousness  of  energy  put  forth,  and  next  that  all  passive 
sensations,  which  in  themselves  fall  to  subject  as  opposed  to 
object,  like  colour  or  sound,  since  they  are  found  to  vary 
definitely  with  our  consciousness  of  activity  put  forth,  come 
to  be  transferred  from  the  subject  to  the  object  side  of  the 
account.  We  come  to  project  them,  and  so  absolutely,  that 
we  cannot  now  have  them  otherwise  than  as  qualities  outside 
of  us.  So  that  when  we  have  made  this  transfer,  we  have 
left  for  subject  all  those  sensations  that  do  not  vary  with  our 
movements  as  well  as  the  whole  of  our  representative  and 
emotional  life  (using  emotional  to  correspond  with  emotion 
only  and  not  with  sense-feeling  as  well). 

Explanation  of  the  Distinction  between  Frimaty  and  Secondary  Qualities. 

It  is  this  consciousness  that  we  have  in  connexion  with 
muscular  activity,  or  rather,  active  sense,  which  gives  the 
real   psychological   explanation   of   the   difference    between 


172  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

so-called  primary  and  secondary  qualities  of  matter.  The  latter 
are  the  result  of  our  passive  sense ;  all  the  former,  except  the 
dubious  case  of  '  number/  being  the  result  of  complex  active 
sense.  So  Locke  was  only  exaggerating  a  distinction  of  real 
importance,  while  Berkeley,  in  trying  to  break  down  all 
distinction,  was  not  doing  well.  He  never  gave  prominence 
to  the  fact  that  we  cannot  apprehend  primary  qualities  of 
matter  without  activity  of  ours  put  forth.  He  approximates 
towards  an  analysis  of  touch  in  his  Theory  of  Vision  (§  45), 
but  does  not  clearly  distinguish  between  active  and  passive 
touch. 

Mill's  Contribution. 

While  Professor  Bain  takes  good  account  of  the  material 
elements  in  explaining  the  development  of  this  opposition  of 
subject  and  object,  he  scarcely  brings  forward  sufficiently  the 
intellectual  laws  that  are  involved.  Mill,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  his  Psychological  Theory  of  the  External  World,  while  he 
gives  a  much  less  careful  statement  of  the  material  factors, 
gives  a  careful  and  relatively  correct  statement  of  the  laws 
under  which  this  development  takes  place.  The  two  taken 
together,  read  with  discernment,  will  afford  the  kind  of 
explanation  that  can  be  given  from  the  psychological  point 
of  view  of  the  development  of  the  opposition. 

Object  and  Subject  in  the  Germ. 

I  say  development,  implying  that  originally  this  opposition 
was  not  present  in  consciousness — that,  even  in  the  lifetime 
of  the  individual,  there  is  a  time  when  in  the  growing 
experience  of  the  child  this  opposition  begins  to  develop. 
I  hold  that  the  vague,  discrete  consciousness  of  the  infant, 
while  it  may  be  called  consciousness,  is  not  to  be  distinguished 
as  subjective  or  as  objective   consciousness   in   the   sense 


xvil]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  173 

afterwards  meant  by  these  words.  It  is  discrete,  else  there 
would  not  be  the  fundamental  condition  of  consciousness, 
i.  e.  discrimination,  but  it  is  too  vague  to  admit  of  that 
opposition  being  present.  Probably  this  comes  to  be  at 
different  times  in  different  minds.  At  some  moment  in 
the  history  of  every  mind  the  confused,  vague  consciousness 
centres  itself,  or  a  beginning  of  separation  is  made,  and 
thenceforth  to  one  term  or  the  other  all  experiences  begin  to 
be  referred.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  not  possible  for  us,  and 
possible  with  a  certain  scientific  ground,  to  interpret  our 
experiences,  before  the  separation  takes  place,  as  having 
a  subjective  meaning.  Unless  what  afterwards  comes  to  be 
object  had  arisen  within  our  individual  experience  and  in 
that  sense  been  subjective,  we  never  could  have  got  to  the 
separation  at  all.  And  I  accept  the  relativity  of  knowledge 
in  the  fullest  sense — that  we  can  have  an  experience  of 
object  only  in  relation  to  subject.  But  I  assert  also  that 
there  is  no  subject-experience  until  there  is  object-experience. 
Each  implies  the  other. 

Now  philosophers  who  have  laid  stress  upon  this  and 
made  object  and  subject,  or  matter  and  mind,  two  separate 
entities,  have  in  one  way  aggrandised  this  opposition 
developed  within  our  psychological  experience,  but  not  so 
aggrandised  it  as  to  have  overlooked  the  mutual  implication. 
In  popular  apprehension  this  is  overlooked.  And  the 
scientific  excuse  for  maintaining  this  exaggerated  separation 
is  that  it  affords  an  excellent  working  hypothesis  for  the 
purposes  of  objective  science. 

Projected  Personality  fills  up  the  Import  of  Object. 

And  there  is  this  important  element  still : — When  we  talk 
about  an  object  outside   of  us  we  give  but  an  inadequate 


174  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

account  of  it  if  we  express  it  psychologically  in  terms  of 
movements  of  ours  and  so  forth.  To  each  such  object  we 
ascribe  more  or  less  a  subjective  existence  for  itself.  Every- 
thing to  me  is  object  primarily,  and  my  subject  is  as  it  were 
to  me  alone.  But  I  come  to  see,  in  the  first  place,  that  of 
all  my  objective  experience  there  is  a  certain  part  more 
constantly  in  connexion  with  my  special  subjective  states 
than  any  other;  and  that  is  my  body.  I  come  to  think  of 
myself  as  a  composite  entity,  and  not  only  as  two  kinds 
of  experience,  but  as  a  prominent  subject  in  relation  to 
a  relatively  prominent  object. 

Next,  I  find  amongst  other  outside  objects  various  objective 
experiences  resembling  those  I  have  from  my  own  body,  but 
not  quite  similar,  else  I  should  mistake  them  for  my  own  body, 
and  for  that  matter  rendered  distinct  by  the  absence  of  the 
double  touches  afforded  by  my  own  body.  To  the  sources 
of  these,  on  the  ground  of  the  similar  experiences  they 
afford  me,  I  ascribe  conscious  states  resembling  my  own — > 
a  subjective  and  also  an  objective  experience. 

Finally,  even  when  there  is  no  such  similarity,  I  ascribe 
an  adumbration  of  subjective  life.  I  do  not  ascribe  to  this 
table  the  power  of  putting  forth  activity,  or  the  feelings  that 
I  ascribe  to  my  hearers  or  claim  for  myself.  But  in  as  far  as 
I  talk  about  the  table  as  a  thing  able  to  enter  into  relation 
with  other  things,  and  in  particular  with  myself,  I  do  give  it 
a  kind  of  quasi-personality ;  and  I  believe  that  this  element 
can  never  be  absent  from  object  entirely.  In  primitive 
minds  we  have  the  tendency  to  ascribe  full  life  to  everything, 
as  we  see  happen  in  fetish-worship.  Children  too  have  this 
anthropomorphic  interpretation  of  experience,  e.  g.  when 
they  kick  the  chair  they  have  hurt  their  shins  against.  It  is 
a  natural  tendency  that  we  have- -this  interpreting  what  we 


xvn.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  175 

experience  as  analogous  to  our  own  subject.  And  I  believe 
that  this  is  only  an  exaggeration  of  what  each  of  us  does, 
and  needs  to  do,  in  order  fully  to  body  out  any  object. 
Unless  I  give  the  table  as  it  were  a  highly  attenuated 
personality,  I  do  not  think  I  get  full  objective  experience, 
I  do  not  think  I  get  at  that  in  my  consciousness  of  object 
which  is  metaphysically  expressed  as  substance. 

The  Psychological  Explanation  of  Substance. 

For  we  may  insist  that  all  qualities  have  their  psychological 
expression  in  terms  of  sensible  experience,  we  may  insist, 
with  respect  to  qualities,  on  the  historically  fundamental 
character  of  resistance — how  that  object  is  first  obstacle,  or 
impediment  in  the  way  of  activity,  and  that  object  so  got  is 
interpreted  through  experience  as  extended,  so  that  space 
is  body  attenuated  rather  than  body  is  space  filled  in — and 
yet,  when  we  have  finished  this  analysis  of  the  psychological 
conception  of  perception,  it  may  be  urged  that  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  metaphysical  conception  of  perception 
the  question  may  still  be  asked,  Is  the  object  'there'  real} 
Is  it  anything  for  itself}  This  is  a  question  not  to  be 
answered  apart  from  psychology,  but  it  should  not  therefore 
be  evaded.  Popularly  judged,  there  is  in  our  pillar  some- 
thing more  than  resistance,  extension,  colour,  and  any 
number  of  qualities.  It  is  said,  there  is  a  substance  there. 
Psychology  then  has  to  explain  substance  as  well  as  attribute. 

Now,  as  we  have  seen,  my  consciousness  presents  me  to 
myself  under  a  subjective  as  well  as  under  an  objective 
aspect.  I  am  an  extended  object  and  I  have  a  subjective 
life,  a  consciousness,  a  personal  identity.  And  I  attribute  to 
you  both  body  and  consciousness.  But  it  is  your  conscious- 
ness that  is  to  me  the  reality  of  you.     You  are  not  so  much 


176  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

a  bundle  of  qualities  which  give  me  impressions  as  the 
conscious  being  who  has  these  sensible  aspects.  Turning 
to  animals,  we  find  ourselves  attributing  subjective  life  to 
them  also.  And,  going  lower  still,  what  we  ascribe  to  the 
pillar  as  reality  or  substance  is  something  analogous  to  that 
which  in  us  is  personality.  Its  substantiality,  as  opposed 
to  its  qualities,  is  a  pale  reflexion  of  our  own  subjective 
experience.  Substance  is  at  bottom  subjectivity.  This  is 
the  psychological  explanation  of  the  popular  notion  of  differ- 
ence of  substance  and  quality,  which  was  overlooked  by 
Berkeley,  Hume,  Mill,  and  Professor  Bain. 

The  Weakness  in  Berkeley's  Theory. 

Berkeley  said  that  supposing  it  were  the  case,  that  the 
qualities. of  matter  were  to  occur  to  us  in  a  certain  orderly 
and  definite  manner,  and  yet  suppose  that  there  was  no 
substance  there,  would  you  miss  this  '  substratum  or  support '  ? 
His  answer  is  No,  we  should  not,  even  as  we  do  not  in 
dreams  (op.  cit.  I,  18).  Then,  he  says,  we  have  no  right  to 
assume  it;  and  he  claims  that  all  he  has  to  account  for  in 
perception  is  the  orderliness  of  experience,  which  he  does  by 
assuming  an  Infinite  Spirit.  And  he  works  round  to  his 
original  position  by  the  argument : — If  the  only  account 
which  scientific  men  can  give  of  substance  is  a  confused 
idea  of  something  supporting  sensible  qualities,  what  shadow 
of  right  have  they  to  say  that  matter  is  the  only  real  thing 
in  the  universe,  and  that  where  there  is  no  matter  there 
is  nothing  at  all?  His  demonstration  then  is  that  there 
is  nothing  whatsoever  in  the  notion  of  substance  which  is 
not  accountable  for  as  sensible  quality,  or  if  there  is,  it 
is  nothing  at  all. 

Has  Berkeley  got  rid  of  substance  altogether  in  overturning 


xvii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  177 

either  the  crude  materialism  of  scientific  men  or  Locke's 
unsatisfactory  account?  Have  we  come  to  this,  that  there 
is  in  the  world  only  an  Infinite  Spirit  and  a  certain  number 
of  other  spirits,  and  can  we  not  ascribe  a  real  existence  to 
anything  but  God,  Berkeley  and  other  spirits  like  himself? 
To  me  his  theory  comes  as  short  here  as  it  does  in  the 
explanation  of  primary  and  secondary  qualities.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  the  notion  of  substance  is  reasonable,  and  that 
while  the  common  sense,  which  has  found  Berkeleianism 
repugnant,  is  no  final  criterion,  it  is  yet  a  fact  that  philosophy 
must  take  into  account,  and  that  too  when  it  says,  '  A  pillar 
is  there.'  Berkeley  can  get  a  coherent  universe  only  by 
supposing  a  number  of  other  minds  plus  the  Deity.  Here  is 
rank  assumption!  Where  are  all  these  minds?  He  may  be 
conscious  of  his  own  mind,  but  how  then  can  he  be  sure  of 
other  minds  ?  He  ought  to  be  able,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  his  psychological  experience,  to  account  for  this  conviction. 
He  would  have  given  another  answer  had  he  faced  the 
question,  How  can  a  mind  allow  other  minds  as  existing? 

Through  Mind  to  Bodies;  through  Bodies  to  other  Minds. 

My  own  conviction,  as  I  have  already  shown,  is  that 
I  infer  consciousness  in  others  through  my  sense-perception  of 
them  as  bodies.  •  Let  me  be  mind  only,  and  I  could  never  get 
out  of  myself.  If  I  assume  that  minds  like  mine  are,  so  to 
say,  present,  it  is  because  I  perceive  bodies  like  mine.  If 
your  bodies  do  not  exist,  why,  mine  does  not.  My  con- 
viction of  the  double  phase  of  my  existence  is  strengthened 
by  finding  that  I  have  objective  experience  of  other  bodies, 
which  suggests  the  existence  of  other  minds.  And  this 
conviction,  by  way  of  inference  that  material  bodies  like 
mine  exist,  is  extended  to  animals,  to  which  mind  is  ascribed 

N 


178  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

because  of  external  manifestations.     It  is  only  an  extension 
of  the  same  notion  to  posit  the  existence  of  all  living  things. 

Then  where  may  we  draw  the  line  ?  There  is  no  material 
object  perceived  by  me  which  is  not  for  me  something 
more  than  an  aggregate  of  (Berkeleian)  ideas.  By  what 
way  I  become  sure  of  you,  I  become  sure  of  all  objects, 
because  I  interpret  my  experience  upon  the  distinction 
I  make  between  body  and  mind.  In  a  sense  my  body  is 
real  enough,  just  as  animals,  trees,  pillars,  &c,  have  all  in 
a  very  real  sense  a  substantial  existence,  which  is  not 
adequately  accounted  for  by  merely  assuming  the  Deity  and 
a  few  human  subjects.  But  bodily  processes  are  explainable 
as  mental  facts,  and  not  vice  versa  :  these  are  for  us  ultimate ; 
these  explain.  Though  I  am  body  as  well  as  mind,  the 
reality  of  me  lies  in  the  continuity  of  my  conscious  being. 
I  am  because  I  am  subjectively  conscious — there  is  my 
reality.  And  where  I  can  infer  subjective  consciousness 
I  say  'you  too  are  real/  This,  extended  further,  is  for  me 
the  explanation  of  the  metaphysical  notion  of  substance. 
We  may  express  substance  in  terms  of  quality,  viz.  as 
Resistance,  but  quality  in  terms  of  substance  needs  Sub- 
ject. Let  no  one  say  that  because  that  pillar  is  perceived 
as  substance  by  analogy  of  my  consciousness  of  myself  as 
subject,  it  is  therefore  taken  up  into  my  own  being.  If 
I  fritter  away  the  reality  of  substance,  what  remains  of  my 
own  reality  and  that  of  others?  There  is  just  the  same 
reason  for  accepting  the  reality  of  external  objects  apart 
from  the  thinker  as  there  is  for  accepting  other  conscious- 
nesses. The  world  of  sense  is  just  as  real  to  Berkeley  as 
it  is  to  the  man  in  the  street.  The  truth  in  his  teaching 
sujgests  to  fresh  students  a  distressful  sense  of  a  desolate 
universe  with  the  ground  cut  away  from  under  their  feet. 


xvil]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  179 

Any  philosophic  satisfaction  that  they  win  will,  it  may  be, 
come  slowly  through  struggle,  wrestling  and  trial.  The 
transition,  however  won  through,  is  a  necessary  process,  but 
it  leaves  us  with  quite  as  real  a  world,  nay,  a  world  more 
real  than  we  had  before.  If  I  say,  I  am  and  none  other 
is— the  motto  of  Solipsism — this  is  a  position  from  which 
I  cannot  be  dislodged,  and  it  is  the  only  logical  position 
for  Berkeley.  But  once  I  allow  other  minds,  then  by  the 
same  argument  I  allow  other  things,  since  it  is  through  per- 
ception of  bodies  that  I  get  at  minds.  Mind,  then,  is  that 
which  is  absolutely  existing ;  mind  is  the  uldmate  expression. 

Ago  ergo  sum. 

Let  us  pursue  the  analogy  between  subject  and  substance 
one  step  further  and  deeper.  If  we  resolve  the  material 
thing  into  its  physical  constituents  and  stop  at  molecules,  we 
are  still  at  the  stage  of  qualities.  But  if  we  go  beyond  sense 
to  inference  and  come  to  the  theoretic  atom,  we  no  longer 
apprehend  matter  by  way  of  qualities,  yet  we  are  compelled 
to  consider  the  atom  as  endowed  with  a  certain  inherent 
activity,  with  force  or  energy.  Matter  is  not  dead  when 
thus  considered;  it  is  only  in  mass  that  it  deports  itself  as 
relatively  dead.  Now  here,  in  this  energy,  we  get  a  mean 
term  relating  to  matter  in  its  ultimate  being  and  our  own 
personality  as  we  subjectively  know  it.  For  the  reality  of 
our  being  consists  most  fully  in  putting  forth  activity,  in 
willing.  I  am,  in  another  and  fuller  sense,  as  I  will  or  put 
forth  activity.  So  too  as  far  as  atoms  exert  energy  they 
really  are.  Force  then  in  the  atom  and  force  in  the  individual 
constitutes  real  existence,  and  is  the  fullest  expression  of 
mind.  Mind  exists  everywhere,  and  must  be  carried  down 
to  explain  any  true  reality. 


180  Elements  of  General  Philosophy ». 

Thus  we  may  take  advantage  of  all  material  phenomena 
in  order  to  help  in  the  consideration  of  mind.  This  is  in  no 
sense  a  materialistic  position.  Atoms  when  in  combination 
appear  so  extended,  yet  the  atom  is  not  extended.  Exten- 
sion is  only  the  ultimate  phenomenal  appearance  of  matter. 
I  assume  that  the  universe  consists  of  elements  which  are 
not  extended,  which  appear  when  in  conjunction  as  extended, 
and  which  are  ultimately  expressible  in  terms  of  mind. 
This  is  the  Leibnizian  conception  of  monads,  which  in 
conjunction  appear  to  a  conscious  mind  as  extended,  but 
taken  alone  are  not  extended,  and  whose  ultimate  expression 
is  in  terms  of  activity.  Monadology  is  the  ultimate  philo- 
sophical analysis  of  the  universe,  with  its  fundamental^ 
postulate  of  real  beings,  immaterial,  unextended,  having 
power  to  act,  of  which  conscious  activity  is  a  higher  phase. 
Here  is  the  platform  of  philosophical  agreement. 


LECTURE   XVIII. 

REGULATIVE   PHILOSOPHICAL    DOCTRINE. 

The  Regulation  of  the  Three  Phases  of  Mind. 

I  have  made  allusion  in  the  first  lecture  of  this  course  to 
philosophy  as  connoting,  under  the  aspect  of  'love  of  wisdom,' 
a  reference  to  practice ;  I  also  claimed  in  the  psycho- 
logical course  that  philosophy  included  logic  as  well  as 
ethics ;  and  I  spoke  later  on  of  a  '  regulative  doctrine '  of 
feeling.  Not  only  feeling,  but  also  intellection  and  conation 
admit  of  being  regulated  in  order  to  an  end  or  ideal.  We 
may  think,  for  instance,  amiss  or  well.  Now  logic  deals 
with  the  conditions  of  good  and  bad,  i.  e.  true  and  false, 
thinking — with  thought  so  as  to  make  it  true.  Again,  action 
can  be  made  good  and  feeling  beautiful.  Ethics,  accordingly, 
is  regulative  doctrine  with  a  view  to  making  action  good. 
And  aesthetics  considers  feelings,  sees  which  of  them 
admit  of  development  towards  a  certain  end,  namely,  beauty 
or  refinement. 

The  fact  that  we  can  distinguish  these  three  regulative 
bodies  of  doctrine,  mutually  independent,  mutually  unre- 
solvable,  exhaustive,  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  strongest 
arguments  for  the  tripartite  division  of  mind.    In  psychology 


1 82  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

it  is  often  hard  to  isolate  them  and  secure  their  independence. 
But  we  can  distinguish  well  enough  that  intellection  in  the 
end  has  to  be  made  true,  conation  in  the  end  has  to  be 
made  good,  feeling  has  to  be  raised  to  the  grade  of  the 
beautiful.  And  we  cannot  add  hereto ;  the  summary  is 
exhaustive. 

Law  as  Generalisation  and  Law  as  Norm. 

Whereas  psychology  explains  mind,  these  doctrines  are 
occupied  with  the  regulation  of  mental  functions.  In  the 
one  case  we  explain  what  is  (or  rather  appears),  in  the  other 
we  regulate  the  phenomenon  with  a  view  to  an  end.  Clearly 
then  in  the  latter  case  we  are  beyond  psychology.  We  have 
passed  from  Phenomenology — to  use  Hamilton's  terms — to 
Nomology ;  we  are  dealing  with  norms,  which,  it  is  true,  are 
laws,  but  not  laws  in  the  scientific  sense.  Scientific  law  ex- 
plains, i.  e.  expresses  the  complex  in  terms  of  the  simple,  the 
particular  in  terms  more  general.  Thus  the  function  of 
psychology  is  to  explain  by  classing  mental  phenomena 
together,  or  generalising  with  respect  to  them.  For  instance, 
according  to  the  law  of  similarity,  whenever  we  form  concepts 
we  are  assimilating.  But  in  the  logical  sense  thinking  is 
being  consistent.  If  you  are  not  consistent,  you  are  'a 
vegetable.'  Here  then  is  law  as  norm.  Psychology  has 
nothing  to  do  with  action  as  good,  any  more  than  it  has  with 
thought  as  true,  but  simply  with  any  kind  of  action.  It  deals 
with  mental  action  as  it  naturally  comes  to  pass. 

The  Connexion  between  Psychology  and  Practical  Philosophy. 

These  three  doctrines  then  come  under  philosophy,  not  as 
a  certain  deeper  kind  of  knowledge,  but  as  involving  that 
certain    practical    bearing    as    implied    by   wisdom,   which 


xviil]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  183 

philosophy  had  at  first  and  will  have  again.  They  are  de- 
partments of  philosophy  in  its  practical  reference,  ethics  being 
the  branch  most  closely  identified  with  philosophy  thus  con- 
sidered. Ethics  is  philosophy  as  regulative  of  conduct,  logic 
and  aesthetics  being  philosophy  as  regulative  of  thought  and 
of  feeling.  Philosophy  results,  eventuates,  is  consummated 
in  ethics,  inasmuch  as  philosophical  consideration  always  in 
the  end  must  be  regarded  as  having  an  ethical  direction,  as 
having  its  outcome  in  guidance  of  conduct,  whether  the 
Ethics  be  blended  with  religion  or  not.  Wisdom  has  reference 
to  conduct;  good  conduct  is  wise;  wise  conduct  is  good; 
hence  ethics  is  a  philosophical  discipline. 

Logic  regarded  as  a  Science. 

From  a  certain  point  of  view  these  doctrines  may  be 
regarded  as  science  and  treated  advisedly  from  the  scientific 
point  of  view.  Let  us  take  logic  first  and  classify  the 
sciences  as  once  before  (v.  Appendix)  into  objective  and  sub- 
jective sciences.  Now  though  logic  is  not  a  science  when 
considered  as  in  any  way  dependent  upon  psychology,  yet, 
considered  by  itself,  it  is  a  science,  and  moreover  it  must  be 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  objective  sciences.  For  just  as 
chemistry  is  more  special  than  physics,  and  physics  more 
special  than  mathematics,  so  is  mathematics  more  special 
than  logic.  Every  one  of  the  sciences,  so  far  as  it  is  a  '  logy/ 
is  a  specialised  logic ;  and  before  logic  there  can  be  nothing. 
But  when  it  is  thus  considered,  it  must  not  be  said  to  be 
conversant  with  thought,  since  this  is  essentially  a  subjective 
notion.  It  becomes  the  science  of  relation  \  and  relation  is 
as  wide  objectively  as  thought  is  subjectively.     Things  as 

1  Not  of  quality,  which,  as  it  includes  quantity,  would  include 
mathematics  as  well. 


184  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

thinkable  are,  objectively  considered,  things  as  relateable. 
Nevertheless  logic  is  not  so  much  a  science  as  a  condition 
of  science. 

Ethics  regarded  as  a  Science. 

Ethics  again  may  be  considered  as  the  science  investigating 
the  various  ways  in  which  men  have  been  found  to  act  in 
relation  to  men,  and  on  this  basis  of  historical  investigation 
rules  how  to  act  in  the  best  way  may  be  framed.  This 
scientific  view  of  ethics  has  followed  from  the  evolution 
theory  and  rather  holds  the  field,  Messrs.  Spencer  and  Leslie 
Stephen  being  the  chief  exponents.  Ethics  is  concerned  with 
good  conduct  followed  by  not  all  individuals  and  nations. 
To  get  a  science  we  must  examine  the  meanings  of  good  and 
bad,  what  good,  and  what  bad,  men  do.  Facts  have  to  be 
collected  from  all  times  and  a  progressive  or  regressive 
development  sought.  This  view  is  an  extension  of  evolution 
as  first  applied  only  to  biological,  and  then  to  anthropological 
conceptions ;  man  as  considered  in  respect  of  his  origin,  as 
evolved,  and  morality  as  a  product  of  evolution,  appearing 
in  time. 

Unquestionably  we  may  proceed  thus.  Ethics  may  be 
regarded  as  the  science  dealing  with  moral  conduct  as  mani- 
festing itself  throughout  time,  and  the  development  of  ethical 
notions  as  the  business  of  the  ethical  philosopher.  Mr.  Spencer 
too,  the  great  systematiser  of  evolution,  says,  with  Comte, 
that  ethics  is  a  science  dependent  upon  sociology  and  not 
upon  psychology,  although  his  work  on  psychology  is  put 
first.  Morality  is  regarded  as  a  historical  social  fact — an 
affair  between  man  and  man.  The  theory  of  man's  social 
relations  is  sociology,  and  some  only  of  those  relations  are 
moral.    Ethics  is  a  more  specialised  sociology.     As  logic 


xviil]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  185 

may  be  regarded  as  the  science  of  things  as  related,  so  ethics 
may  be  considered  as  the  science  of  action  as  practicable,  of 
such  actions  as  men  can  get  on  with  amongst  themselves. 
Indeed  much  ethical  matter  can  and  ought,  much  more  than 
it  has  been,  to  be  treated  scientifically,  inductively,  with 
verification  from  history. 

Scientific  Treatment  does  not  exhaust  Ethics. 

But  no  ultimate  problems  can  be  thus  fairly  gone  into. 
Unawares  the  scientific  moralist  is  ever  making  philosophical 
assumptions  which  he  ought  to  justify  there  and  then.  For 
instance, '  whatever  is,  is  right ; '  '  if  a  moral  custom  is  found 
in  use,  it  is  because  it  is  right.'  Here  is  an  assumption 
which  may  not  be  justified  by  scientific  consideration  alone. 
Again, '  the  conditions  of  human  welfare  are  those  of  human 
being; — why  need  men  be  dissatisfied  with  what  they  find?' — 
this  is  a  philosophical  consideration.  The  ideal  morality, 
the  morality  of  the  future,  is  an  inevitable  point  in  ethics,  but 
it  cannot  be  prescribed  without  pronouncing  some  one  goal 
preferable.  Now  why  any  one  in  particular  ?  This  is  not  a 
question  of  matter  of  fact,  but  of  what  were  better  or  worse,  and 
needing  a  criterion  of  the  same.  It  may  not  be  adequately 
answered  by  direct  facts  of  sociological  experience,  but  needs 
deeper  consideration — even  philosophical.  There  is  room,  I 
say,  for  plentiful  invesugation  of  manners,  for  inductive  inquiry 
into  human  relations  down  the  course  of  history.  Already 
we  see  a  development  of  ethical  conceptions,  an  ethical 
progress,  a  change  of  ideals.  But  what  is  an  ideal  ?  What 
is  good  ?  And  what,  we  ask  at  this  time  of  day,  as  ask  we 
must — what  direction  ought  human  action  to  take?  The 
problem  of  ethics  is  not  soluble  by  purely  scientific  analysis; 
we    cannot    help    being   philosophical.      Very   much    iiom 


186  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect 

evolutionary  science  we  can  accept,  but  it  just  misses  the 
point  in  that  it  does  not  adequately  treat  of  the  '  consciously 
aimed  at,'  the  ideal. 

Finally,  let  not  this  view  (of  ethics  as  a  science)  be  made 
light  of;  let  the  works  of  its  exponents  be  read,  but 
critically,  and  it  will  be  seen  how  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen, 
scouting  metaphysic  as  he  does,  is  as  much  a  metaphysician 
as  any  one,  and  how  Mr.  Spencer  really  deals  not  only  with 
facts,  but  also  with  aims,  ends,  ideals. 

Logic  and  Psychology — the  Bond  and  the  Distinction. 

Logic  derives  the  materials  it  works  upon  from  psychology; 
it  has  to  regulate  that  function  of  mind  which,  psychologically, 
we  distinguish  as  intellection.  It  does  not  however  deal  with 
the  whole  of  intellection,  but  only  with  that  higher  or  more 
complex  mode  which  we  have  termed  '  thought.'  Now  why 
is  thought  the  only  part  of  intellection  that  can  be  logically 
regulated  ? 

Let  us  first  consider  some  of  the  definitions  of  logic : — 

(a)  The  science  of  reasoning ; 

(6)  The  art  of  reasoning  ; 

(c)  The  science  of  the  operations  of  the  understanding 
which  are  subservient  to  the  estimation  of  evidence,  i.  e.  in 
the  pursuit  of  truth. 

Of  these  (a)  is  not  quite  acceptable,  for  surely  psychology 
as  the  science  of  mind  includes  the  science  of  reasoning ;  and 
the  statement  is  now  admitted  to  be  insufficient.  It  confuses 
logic  with  psychology,  (b)  avoids  the  error  of  (a);  psychology 
can  under  no  circumstances  be  termed  an  art.  An  art  has 
a  practical  outcome,  and  logic  tells  us  how  we  ought  to 
reason  in  order  to  reason  correctly  or  effectively.  An  art 
is  a  science  definitely  applied,  and  this  sort  of  applied  science 


xvill.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  187 

is  what  logicians  most  probably  wished  to  assert  as  the  nature 
of  logical  procedure.  Any  confusion  between  the  two  is 
really  only  verbal.  Nobody  pretends  that  logic  and  psychology 
deal  with  reasoning  in  the  same  way.  But  logic  has  to  do 
with  much  besides  '  reasoning/  namely,  with  judgment,  as 
expressed  in  propositions,  and  with  names  or  terms  which 
correspond  to  concepts.  Hence  Hamilton's  definition,  that 
logic  has  to  do  with  thought,  as  thought  is  a  real  advance 
towards  justice  and  accuracy.  Logic,  he  also  said,  is  the 
science  of  the  necessary  laws  of  thought.  Bare  thought  as 
explained  by  psychology  is  all  very  well,  but  it  is  not  as  real 
or  effective  thought  that  psychology  can  take  account  of  it. 
In  order  to  be  effective,  valid,  true,  thought  has  to  conform 
to  certain  definite  conditions,  to  '  necessary '  rather  than  to 
natural  laws.  But  it  is  in  Mill's  definition  (c)  that  we  may 
best  gather  how  logic  differs  from  psychology.  'Under- 
standing' has  of  late  become  more  popular  than  scientific, 
but  it  once  corresponded  to  thought  (or  to  Hamilton's  fifth 
faculty — the  Discursive,  Elaborative  or  Comparative).  The 
definition  more  tersely  put  is  that  '  logic  deals  with  true 
understanding.'  Logic  deals  with  thought  as  true,  while 
psychology  deals  with  thought  as  it  naturally  proceeds  within 
us.  With  the  question  whether  thought  has  any  validity, 
psychology  has  nothing  whatever  to  do. 

What  is  Truth  ? 

Now  what  is  this  truth  of  which  logic  seeks  to  give  an 
account  ?  This  is  about  the  deepest  of  philosophical  questions 
and  cannot  be  thoroughly  answered.  But  we  do  not  need 
to  go  to  the  bottom  of  it  in  this  connexion.  The  full  question 
is  thus  to  be  stated : — What  is  the  relation  between  thought 
and  being?     Is  there  a  reality  apart  from  thought  which 


188  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

thinking  represents  ?  And  how  does  thinking  represent  it  ? 
These  questions,  as  we  have  seen,  fall  within  the  province 
of  epistemology,  which  is  really  another  face  of  ontology. 
When  however  we  consider  truth  in  logic  we  do  not  need 
to  determine  what  ultimately  is,  and  how  that  reality  can  be 
known ;  we  do  not  need  a  theory  of  knowledge  or  an 
ontology  to  start  with.  In  logic  we  hold  that  to  be  true 
which  is  valid  not  only  for  my  consciousness,  but  for  all 
consciousnesses  like  mine.  A  thing  is  not  true  if  it  only 
holds  good  for  me.  Psychology  deals  only  with  the  fact 
of  intellection  going  on  in  my  consciousness  for  me  or  in 
yours  for  you  ;  it  does  not  touch  upon  truth  as  such  at  all. 
A  thing  may  be  psychologically  explicable  though  not 
logically  grounded.  Intellection  regulated  with  a  view  to 
truth  is  logically  grounded  knowledge.  '  All  men  are  mortal ' 
is  logically  grounded  knowledge.  When  psychology  has  ex- 
plained to  me  how  I  come  to  connect  '  man '  and  '  mortal.' 
these  notions  are  then  further  connected  upon  a  basis  of 
logical  ground  which  holds  for  others  beside  myself.  Hence 
we  say  '  Man  is  mortal '  is  true ;  it  holds  for  all  conscious- 
nesses upon  ground  that  can  be  assigned,  i.  e.  evidence. 

Self-consistency;  Conformity  to  Fact. 
Truth  is,  then,  what  holds  intellectually  for  all  minds  alike. 
But  we  distinguish  two  kinds  of  truth,  viz.  truth  to  self  and 
truth  to  fact.  '  All  men  are  mortal ' — this  holds  for  all 
consciousnesses  in  the  sense  that  our  thought  in  the  case  is 
taken  to  represent  fact.  Any  assertion  that  flows  from  this 
will  also  be  truth  of  fact,  e.g.  'No  immortal  is  a  man.'  Now 
let  us  assume  '  All  men  are  cats.'  Then  if  a  man  were  to 
enter  this  room,  we  must  expect  to  see  him  furry  and  on  all 
fours.     If  you  cannot  accept  this,  you  are  untrue  to  your- 


xviil.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  189 

self;  but  if  in  this  case  you  are  true  to  yourself,  you  cannot 
be  true  to  fact.  We  can  have  truth  to  self  entirely  apart 
from  fact ;  and  again,  we  can  have  truth  to  fact  which  is  not 
true  to  self.  A  really  effective  mind  is  both  true  to  self  and 
true  to  fact. 

Departments  of  Logic. 

Now  Pure  or  Formal  Logic  is  the  doctrine  that  determines 
the  conditions  that  regulate  truth  to  self  apart  from  fact,  the 
doctrine,  in  other  words,  of  mere  consistency ;  whereas 
Applied,  Material  or  Modified  Logic  is  a  doctrine  that  lays 
down  the  conditions  that  regulate  truth  of  fact.  Hamilton's 
Logic,  e.  g.  is  chiefly  Formal ;  Mill's  aims  always  at  being 
Real  or  Material.  Jevons  jumbles  up  the  two  quite  hope- 
lessly. Consistency  really  covers  both  kinds  of  logic.  The 
internal,  intrinsic  truth  of  thought  is  that  it  shall  be  consistent 
with  itself.  The  external,  extrinsic  truth  of  thought  is  that  it 
shall  be  consistent  with  fact ;  that  subject  shall  correspond  to 
object.  The  business  of  most  of  us  in  life  is  mainly  to  be 
consistent  with  ourselves.  For  very  few  of  us  are  destined 
to  widen  the  bounds  of  knowledge;  we  come  into  the  world 
'  the  heirs  of  time,'  and  have  enough  to  do  with  truly  applying 
the  knowledge  we  find.  Herein  logic  tells  us  to  do  explicitly 
what  we  have  hitherto  done  implicitly. 

Truth  is  a  Question  of  Judgment. 

Now  to  answer  our  question  why  thought  is  the  only  part 
of  intellection  that  can  be  logically  regulated.  Intellection 
includes  perception,  imagination,  and  thought.  Why  can 
we  not  logically  regulate  our  perceiving  and  imagining? 
Strictly  speaking,  we  cannot  speak  of  true  perception  or  true 
imagination,  whereas  thought  can  be  true  or  false.  Neither 
our  perception  as  such,  nor  our  imagination  (which  is  only 


190  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

perceiving  over  again)  is  grounded  ;  we  do  not  find  reasons 
in  the  case  of  either.  It  is  only  when  knowledge  is  general 
that  we  can  speak  of  it  as  true.  Perceiving  and  thinking 
both  proceed  unreflectively  and  naturally,  but  thinking  may 
also  proceed  reflectively ;  we  can  watch  it  as  it  comes  to 
pass,  and  regulate  it;  it  can  be  modified  and  corrected  as 
perceiving  cannot.  Perception  involves  to  some  extent 
thinking ;  to  the  extent  that  there  is  explicit  thinking  per- 
ception may  be  regulated.  Scientific  observation  is  perception 
involving  explicit  thinking ;  thought  is  brought  to  bear  on 
the  sense-experience  we  are  having,  and  so  far  this  admits 
of  logical  control  and  may  be  improved  and  corrected. 
The  Frobel  system  helps  children  to  perceive  in  a  definite 
way  more  accurately  and  effectively.  The  help  thus  given 
to  perception  may  be  compared  to  the  logical  regulation 
of  thought.  But  we  cannot  think  logically  before  we  can 
perceive,  any  more  than  we  can  be  taught  to  dance  before 
we  have  practically  taught  ourselves  to  walk.  We  come  to 
think,  and  think,  it  may  be,  in  a  regulated  fashion,  upon 
a  basis  of  perception. 


For  Lecture  XIX  consult : — 

G.  C.  Robertson,  Philosophical  Remains,   '  On  the  Action    of  so- 
called  Motives;'  and  Bain,  Bk.  IV,  ch.  xi. — Ed. 


LECTURE  XIX. 

THE   BASIS    AND    THE   END    OF    ETHICS. 

Conation,  Ethics,  and  Conduct. 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  fact  of  logic,  ethics,  and 
aesthetics  being  all  on  the  same  level  with  respect  to  their  all 
having  distinct  regulative  work  to  do  for  the  mind  is  really  one 
of  the  strongest  indirect  proofs  that  we  have  of  the  existence 
of  a  third  distinguishable  phase  of  mind,  namely,  conation. 
And  of  these  three  doctrines  ethics,  at  any  rate,  has  at  no  time 
lacked  full  consideration.  It  has  indeed  tended  to  be  identi- 
fied with  practical  philosophy.  In  the  end  all  practice  ends 
and  culminates  in  acting  rightly.  For  conduct  involves  others, 
whereas  thought  and  feeling  directly  concern  the  individual 
only. 

Ethics  and  Psychology. 

Ethics  is  related  to  psychology  not  as  a  cognate  science, 
but  in  that  it  depends  for  its  material  upon  the  psychology 
of  conation.  English  writers  are  always  confusing  ethics 
and  psychology,  e.g.  Butler  and  Reid.  Professor  Sidgwick 
seemed,  in  the  earlier  editions  of  his  Methods  of  Ethics,  to 
be  so  anxious  to  separate  ethics  and  psychology  that  he 
almost  said  the  former  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  latter, 
e.g.  '  The  investigation  of  the  historical  antecedents  of  moral 
cognition  and  of  its  relations  to  other  states  of  mind  has  no 


192  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

more  to  do  with  ethics  than  the  corresponding  investigation 
of  the  nature  of  space  has  to  do  with  geometry 1 ' — a  view 
he  has  since  modified.  It  was  a  mistaken  view,  for  the 
psychological  solution  has  a  bearing  on  the  ethical.  Ethics 
deals  with  that  which  has  to  be  brought  to  pass  as  an  end 
consciously  conceived,  and  thus  we  see  the  subjective  aspect, 
the  relation  to  psychology,  of  ethics.  The  leading  ethical 
topics,  viz.  the  springs  of  action  and  the  moral  faculty  or 
conscience,  can  only  be  understood  in  their  relation  to 
psychology.  Again  the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will, 
which  belongs  to  the  metaphysics  of  ethics,  is  discussed 
largely  on  a  psychological  basis. 

The  Question  of  the  Freedom  of  the  Will. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  we  must  posit  a  power  of  action 
in  the  human  mind  wholly  antecedent  to  and  independent  of 
all  psychological  experience  whatever.  This  has  naturally 
been  connected  with  a  metaphysical  consideration  of  what 
mind  is  in  itself.  There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to 
whether  the  terms  '  free  will '  and  '  necessity  '  are  good  and 
appropriate  words  to  be  used  in  regard  to  will  at  all,  the  per- 
tinency of  the  former  term  especially  being  declared  against 
generally  by  those  who  deny  the  '  freedom  '  of  the  will  in  the 
sense  in  which  others  assert  it.  Let  us  put  aside  these  words, 
in  which  the  question  has  commonly  been  treated  in  English 
controversy,  and  give  attention  to  other  terms  more  in  recent 
use — '  Determinism '  and  '  Indeterminism.'  The  latter  is  a 
strictly  definable  term  and  is  synonymous  with  the  doctrine  of 

1  Methods  of  Ethics,  ist  edition,  Preface.  In  the  3rd  edition 
Professor  Sidgwick  has  appended  this  note:  'This  statement  now 
appears  to  me  to  require  a  slight  modification.'  Cf.  also  his  art 
'  Ethics,'  Encyc.  Britannica. — Ed. 


xix.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  193 

free  will,  while  what  has  commonly  been  called  the  doctrine 
of  philosophical  necessity,  or  also  Necessitarianism,  is  more 
scientifically  expressed  by  the  theory  of  Determinism.  Both 
views,  while  opposed  in  themselves,  are  opposed  to  another 
view,  the  supporters  of  which  have  been  confused  by  being 
classed  with  either  side.  These  are  theorists  who  do  not. 
consider  the  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychology 
at  all,  but  from  that  of  man's  position  in  the  universe.  And 
they  assert,  as  related  to  and  yet  different  from  Determinism, 
that  there  is  fatalism  or  perfect  fatality  in  human  actions, 
that  everything  in  the  world  is  as  it  cannot  but  be,  that  all 
is  predetermined  by  external  causes.  This  fatalistic  theory 
may  also  assume  the  theological  form  of  predestination,  viz. 
that  the  Creator  has  determined  exactly  what  shall  come 
about  in  the  world  in  general  and  in  each  human  mind.  By 
opposition  to  fatalism  or  predestination  we  have  the  assertion 
that  the  foreknowledge  of  the  Deity  determines  nothing 
absolutely  or  necessarily  with  regard  to  any  particular  event 
or  action  of  men.  The  necessity  of  fatalism  may  be  said 
to  be  a  cosmical  necessity.  The  necessity  of  predestination 
is  cosmical  too,  but  more  determined,  not  falling  back  upon 
a  mere  abstraction  like  fate  or  cosmos,  but  connected 
expressly  with  a  personal  Being  or  Providence.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  view  asserting  absolute  freedom 
from  cosmical  necessity  of  any  sort,  and  of  course  from  pro- 
vidential determination.  Theologians  like  John  Calvin,  or, 
to  a  great  extent,  Augustin,  were  much  more  concerned 
with  the  question  as  between  fatalism  and  predestination  and 
the  opposite  than  with  the  more  scientific  problem  depending 
on  the  nature  of  Will.  Their  views  we  exclude  from  present 
discussion,  the  question  for  us  lying  between  Determinism, 
or  philosophical  necessity,  and  Indeterminism. 

o 


194  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

The  Ground  of  each  Position. 

The  Determinist  declares  that,  as  in  nature  generally  so 
among  human  actions,  the  same  circumstances  being  present 
the  same  effect  will  follow.  Or,  as  it  is  often  expressed,  since 
motives  are  productive  of  actions,  the  same  motives  being 
present,  the  same  action  will  always  follow.  The  view  of  the 
Indeterminist  is  that  motives  never  wholly,  or  need  not  ever 
wholly,  determine  human  action ;  that  with  the  same  motives 
present  at  different  times  different  actions  may  follow ;  that  in 
motives  we  do  not  get  the  full  expression  of  the  conditions  of 
human  action ;  that  beyond  all  motives  there  is  the  activity 
of  the  ego  itself;  that  there  is  a  source  of  internal  force, 
a  self-initiating  power  in  the  human  mind  itself,  a  power  of 
self-determination  of  the  ego  apart  from  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  ego  is  placed,  which  may  determine  action 
in  the  teeth  of  any  quantity  of  motive.  Hence  it  is  called 
Indeterminism,  meaning  that  action  is  not,  or  need  not  ever 
be,  wholly  determined  by  motives. 

Now  it  is  easy  to  see  what  sort  of  grounds  the  different 
theories  rely  upon. 

The  Determinists  say  that  it  is  z/act  that  human  actions 
proceed  uniformly,  and  they  point  to  statistics  in  proof  of  this. 
All  human  actions,  they  declare,  are  determined  wholly  by 
motives ;  unless  we  knew  that  people  would  act,  under  parti- 
cular circumstances,  in  definite  ways  we  could  never  get 
on  at  all.  Unless  there  is  this  uniformity  in  human  action 
as  in  everything  else,  between  volition  and  its  antecedent, 
**  is  impossible  to  have  a  science  of  the  human  mind 
at  all.  I  think  this  is  the  strongest  thing  the  Determinist 
can  urge. 

What  the  Indeterminists  dwell  on  chiefly  is  the  consciousness 


xix.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  195 

of  freedom  that  we  have  in  volition;  we  are  conscious  of  a  power 
of  acting  against  any  motives.  Not  that  we  do  so  always  or 
often,  but  let  the  motives  be  never  so  strong  or  so  weak,  by 
a  pure  act  of  will,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  it  is  possible  for 
the  man  or  ego  to  act  for  himself  and  of  himself.  So  much 
do  they  rely  on  this  that  one  of  them,  Hamilton,  declared 
that,  however  much,  on  the  ground  of  psychology,  he  was 
bound  to  allow  that  any  action  ever  put  forth  can  be  said 
to  follow  from  particular  motives  (of  course  widely  extend- 
ing the  notion  of  motive  to  cover  cases  of  action  through 
so-called  sheer  caprice),  we  must  yet  in  the  last  resort  rely 
upon  this  simple  and  fundamental  deliverance  of  conscious- 
ness, viz.  that  we  are  free  agents,  that  our  actions  proceed,  or 
may  proceed,  from  a  source  within  us  wholly  undetermined. 

Choice  as  determined  by  the  prevailing  '  Motive.' 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  a  Determinist  would  answer  this.  I 
might  have  a  strong  inducement  to  go  out  of  that  door  and 
yet  say  'No,  I  will  stay' — and  stay.  Now  here,  he  would  point 
out,  I  should  only  have  yielded  to  a  motive  of  a  different  kind, 
which  motive  may  be  sheer  caprice,  or  obstinacy,  or  laziness,  or 
the  desire  to  show  you  that  one  need  not  act  from  particular 
motives,  and  so  forth,  and  which  is  just  in  this  case  the  more 
powerful  motive,  or  motives.  All  this  Hamilton  allowed  with 
full  force,  and  was  angry  with  Reid,  who  did  not  see  what 
Determinists  aim  at  in  declaring  that  every  action  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  motives  of  some  sort  or  other.  Yet  he 
would  not  therefore  give  up  free  will  in  the  strict  sense,  and 
indeed  points  to  this  case  of  apparent  contradiction  between 
necessity  to  act  under  motives  and  consciousness  of  perfect 
freedom  as  a  clear  case  of  contradiction  within  consciousness, 
and  as  illustrating  his  Law  of  the  Conditioned. 


196  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

The  Argument  in  terms  of  Motives  is  a  Logomachy. 

Now  just  one  word  about  the  controversy  before  I  pass  on 
and  close.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  difference  between  the  two  views  is  greatly  affected  by  the 
language  in  which  the  discussion  has  taken  place.  I  am  not 
arguing  in  the  sense  in  which  Professor  Bain  argues,  not  ineffec- 
tively, against  the  language  that  has  been  employed  in  this 
question.  He  objects  to  the  use  of  '  free  and  '  necessary  '  as 
applied  to  will,  and  there  is  much  force  in  his  remarks.  But 
I  want  to  make  a  deeper  charge  against  language  than  that, 
and  especially  against  all  this  talk  of  '  motives '  with  regard  to 
the  question  of  choice  of  action.  Such  language  is  not  scientific 
but  merely  metaphorical,  and  prejudices  the  issue.  Both  sides ' 
are  to  blame  herein.  And  I  think  that,  if  the  question  had 
to  be  decided  in  terms  of  motives,  the  Determinists  get  into 
a  very  bad  position.  '  Motive  '  implies  an  ego  or  subject  who 
is  '  moved.'  If  this  terminology  is  used  and  regarded  as  an 
ultimately  satisfactory  way  of  stating  the  case,  then  we  must 
fall  back  with  the  Indeterminists  on  the  assumption  of  an 
undetermined  ego,  in  which  case  motives  no  longer  amount 
to  a  sufficient  explanation  of  actions.  On  the  other  hand,  and 
granting  still  the  language  of  motives,  I  must  with  the  Deter- 
minists, as  well  as  with  Hamilton,  assert  that  the  determining 
causes  or  antecedents  of  every  act  can  well  be  expressed  in 
terms  of  motive.  And  I  certainly  think  that  those  cases 
where  we  talk  about  the  self-initiation  of  movements  and 
their  proceeding  from  the  ego  and  so  forth  are  as  much 
acts  determined  by  '  motives '  as  any  of  the  simplest  are. 

'  Motive '  is  a  mere  popular  Metaphor. 

How  then  shall  we  get  out  of  this  difficulty?  We  have  proved 
the   Determinist  theory  and   also  the    Indeterminist  theory 


xix.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  ig*] 

under  this  language  of  '  motives.'  We  must  lay  the  difficulty 
on  the  language.  If  motives  were  something  external  to  the 
mind,  as  from  the  language  used  one  might  well  conclude, 
then  indeed  we  must  take  account  of  a  mind  or  ego.  But 
what  sort  of  thing  is  a  motive  affecting  the  mind  and  yet 
external  to  it  ?  What  is  motive  after  all  ?  It  may  be  a  feeling. 
It  may  be  an  idea.  It  may  be  a  resolution  or  vow,  or  a 
great  many  other  mental  states.  '  Motive  '  is  only  a  popular 
or  loose  way  of  stating  certain  mental  states  involving  action. 
Well  then,  if  motives  are  after  all  mental  states,  and  not 
something  external  to  the  mind,  as  is  commonly  implied, 
then  the  question  becomes  altered  at  once.  We  cannot 
say  that  a  state  of  mind  is  anything  apart  from  mind. 
It  is  mind  in  that  state.  When  I  say,  I  have  a  conflict 
of  motives,  it  means  that  I  have  now  one  tendency  to  act 
and  now  another.  And  when  I  say,  I  hold  to  a  particular 
motive,  the  truer  expression  for  this  is  that,  amid  a  variety  of 
conscious  conditions  succeeding  one  another,  one  becomes 
prominent  or  predominant  and  has  a  particular  action  follow- 
ing upon  it. 

The  Determinist  view  I  am  constrained  to  accept ;  its 
ground  of  universal  uniformity  is  sounder.  But  just  as  the 
Sensationalists  used  to  express  experience  in  terms  of  sense  in 
such  a  way  as  to  render  any  explanation  of  knowledge  from 
sense  impossible,  so  does  Determinism  by  the  terms  of  its 
statement  render  itself  inadmissible  and  make  a  surrender 
to  the  opposite  side. 

Altruistic  Considerations. 

In  ethical  problems,  then,  we  are  on  a  basis  of  psychology, 
but  not  psychologising.  If,  e.g.  we  consider  appetites  and 
desires,  it  is  not  to  make  out  anything  by  way  of  psychological 


198  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

explanation  about  them,  but  to  account  for  what  they  are  with 
legard  for  self  and  for  others.  Ethical  questions  are  wholly 
concerned  with  the  consideration  of  self  and  others,  with 
relations  between  man  and  man — with  liberty  to  develop  the 
subject  in  either  direction,  viz.  of  the  relations  between  man 
and  higher  minds  (religion),  and  between  man  and  lower 
minds,  of  relations,  i.e.  either  humanistic  or  to  the  universe. 
For  'springs  of  action'  it  were  better,  in  ethics,  to  substitute 
'springs  of  conduct,'  conduct  being  the  actions  of  an  in- 
dividual considered  in  relation  to  anything  which  involves 
himself  and  others  as  related  to  himself. 

The  Ethical  Standard. 

The  properly  ethical  question  is  that  of  the  standard  of  right 
and  wrong.  A  man's  view  of  this  is  enough  of  itself  to  deter- 
mine his  whole  ethical  theory;  and  there  is  no  other  question 
that  is  sufficient  in  itself  for  this.  Men  may  agree  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  moral  faculty,  and  yet  admit  different  views  as 
to  the  standard  or  criterion  of  right  and  wrong.  Whereas 
a  view  of  the  standard  will  carry  a  man  right  through.  It  is 
to  ethics  what  truth  of  thought  is  to  logic. 

Ethics  and  Politics. 

In  modern  times  ethics  has  acquired  a  great  independence 
of  politics,  and  has  come  more  and  more  to  rise  supreme 
above  the  latter.  Plato  and  Aristotle  made  out  ethics  to  be 
a  department  of  politics.  This  was  because  the  Greeks,  in  a 
highly  developed  political  system  within  a  small  territory,  were 
politicians  first  and  moralists  afterwards.  Only  a  few  saw 
that  there  was  room  for  a  further  consideration  of  man's  action 
as  man  and  not  as  citizen.  When  Greek  political  life  became 
extinct  the  ethical  question  in  turn  came  uppermost,  e.  g.  in 


xix.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  199 

Stoicism  and  Epicureanism,  in  which  ethics  began  to  be 
differentiated  as  a  theory  of  individual  action.  At  a  time 
when  the  traditional  religious  conceptions  had  lost  their  hold 
on  cultivated  minds,  it  became  of  primary  importance  that 
some  Theory  of  Life  and  Conduct  should  be  developed  as 
a  substitute  for  a  religious  creed.  With  the  progress  of  time 
a  more  highly  analytical  study  of  human  nature  has  arisen, 
hence  we  distinguish  more  sharply  between  ethical  and 
political  principles. 

Ethics  and  Christianity. 

Again,  the  influence  of  Christianity  on  ethics  is  extremely 
marked.  Christianity  inculcated  the  notion  of  the  individual 
life  or  soul  as  having  infinite  value.  The  man,  in  and  for 
himself,  once  swamped  in  the  citizen,  has  become  the  fact  of 
greatest  moment.  What  a  man  is  and  what  a  man  ought  to  do 
are  questions  that  have  become  prominent  in  the  Christian 
era  as  they  never  did  in  Greek  or  Roman  civilisation. 

E'hics  and  Theology.    Cogency  of  the  Social  Factor. 

In  so  far  as  ethics  has  helped  to  develop  ethical  principles, 
it  has  done  so  inevitably  in  relation  to  certain  theological 
considerations.  Yet  this  does  not  make  ethics  necessarily 
dependent  upon  theology.  One  ought  to  be  able  to  determine 
the  rule  of  life  merely  from  a  consideration  of  human  nature. 
Morality  proper  depends  upon  the  exclusion  of  theology.  To 
seek  a  constraining  power  in  order  to  good  conduct  impeaches 
the  very  notion  of  morality  and  trangresses  the  province  of 
ethics.  Morality  can  only  give  intelligible  reasons.  Con- 
science, the  impulse  to  do  right  from  a  purely  ethical  point 
of  view,  arises  from  the  fact  that  man  is  no  mere  individual 
but  a  member  of  the  social  organism.  What  a  man  becomes, 
he  becomes  not  of  himself  but  through  others.     Therefore, 


200  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

while  it  is  natural  that  he  should  act  out  of  regard  to  self 
«»reflectively,  when  his  actions  begin  to  be  done  reflectively, 
it  is  impossible  for  him  not  to  allow  that  he  is  bound  to 
sacrifice  himself  in  all  cases  where  there  is  a  conflict  between 
self-interests  and  the  common  good.  There  is  a  law  upon 
him  not  to  be  thrown  off.  Not  to  allow  this  is  for  a  man 
to  claim  to  have  created,  by  and  for  himself,  life  and  know- 
ledge and  all  that  makes  life  worth  having. 


PART  II. 
SPECIAL    LECTURES 

Lecture  XX. 

ON   THE   EPISTEMOLOGY   OF   PLATO   IN   THE 
PHMDO,  REPUBLIC,  THEMTETUS  AND  TIMMUS*. 

Reading — Plato's  Dialogues,  Jowett's  Translation ;  Plato's  Timaus, 
edited  by  Archer-Hind. 

The  stages  in  Plato's  life  are  well  marked.  The  date 
of  his  birth  being  b.c.  427,  we  note  (a)  the  Socratic  stage 
(407-399) — his  Lehrjahre  as  they  have  been  called — when  he 
was  the  pupil  of  Socrates  till  the  latter  was  put  to  death. 
(3)  Twelve  years  of  travel  (399-387) — his  Wanderjahre — when 
he  visited  Magna  Grsecia  (S.  Italy),  Sicily,  Egypt,  with 
occasional  returns  to  Athens,  when  he  began  his  relations 
with  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  and  which  include  his  first 
period  of  productive  activity  (i.  e.  of  the  Socratic  dialogues). 
(c)  The  stage  of  supreme  effective  thinking  and  teaching, 
as  a  philosopher,  with  his  school  in  the  grove  of  Academus 
(387-367).     (d)  To    Syracuse  again,   visiting   the  younger 

1  From  a  special  course  on  the  Tlicalelus,&ic,  February,  March,  1892. 


202  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Dionysius  (367-365).  In  361  he  visited  Syracuse  yet  again. 
(e)  Third  period  of  philosophising  and  teaching,  during 
which  he  gave  the  last  development  to  his  theory  of  ideas, 
and  his  cosmology.  The  chief  productions  of  this  period 
were  the  Laws,  probably  the  Philebus,  the  Parmenides,  and 
the  Sophistes,  leading  up  to  the  Timaus. 

We  have  already  seen  (supra,  Lecture  IV)  what  was  the 
heritage  of  thought  to  be  entered  into  by  Plato :  first,  the 
physical  philosophy  of  the  Pre-Socratics ;  then  in  Protagoras 
a  despair  of  physical  and  also  of  moral  science,  withal 
a  highly  refined  argumentation  as  to  practical  life;  next  the 
teaching  of  Socrates,  also  despairing  of  physical  science, 
but  aiming  at  a  science  of  moral  conceptions  and  identifying* 
virtue  with  knowledge,  or  with  the  outcome  of  knowledge. 
Into  the  mind  of  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries  Plato 
entered  generally,  combining  the  high  moral  purpose  of 
Socrates,  and,  at  first,  the  Socratic  method  with  a  wider  and 
bolder  sweep  of  constructive  thinking.  He  asked,  in  its 
widest  generality,  as  the  great  question  for  a  philosopher, 
What  is  knowlege?  Though  ethical  purpose  is  always 
present  as  his  final  aim,  yet  the  problem  of  conduct  was  to 
be  solved  by  him  through  previous  consideration  of  the 
universal  problem  of  knowledge,  and  not  of  knowledge  in 
a  limited  sphere  as  with  Socrates. 

The  ThecEtetus  is  a  dialogue  of  research  without  the 
positive  results  characterising  the  Republic.  Many  points 
are  raised,  but  not  settled.  The  subject  is  of  the  greatest 
difficulty,  and  one  on  which  Plato's  writings  show  a  con- 
tinuous development.  It  is  occupied  with  epistemology — 
with  knowledge  as  such — here  treated  more  independently 
than  elsewhere  of  his  dogmatic  theory  of  Ideas.  It  sums 
up   and   destructively  criticises  all   previous   views   on   the 


xx.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  203 

problem  of  knowledge,  making  reference,  explicit  or  im- 
plicit, to  Plato's  predecessors.  His  own  theory  it  leaves 
indeterminate.  Had  he  thought  out  a  reasoned  solution,  his 
positive  philosophy  would  have  been  complete.  Some 
suppose  the  dialogue  was  written  before  367,  but  revised  in 
the  third  period,  because  of  the  view  that  philosophers 
should  stand  aloof  from  practical  life.  This,  it  is  said,  will 
have  been  in  connexion  with  his  unfortunate  experiences 
during  his  later  visits  to  Syracuse  and  his  own  isolation  from 
practical  life.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Laws,  his  latest  work, 
shows  the  philosopher  in  close  relation  with  practical  life. 

The  Republic  is  Plato's  greatest  achievement  in  its  com- 
bination of  range  of  thinking  with  literary  effect.  Close 
inspection,  however,  shows  signs  of  aggregation  at  different 
times.  Books  I  and  II  on  Justice  are  quite  Socratic,  and 
may  well  have  been  written  in  his  first  period  of  pro- 
duction. After  Book  I,  which  leads  to  no  positive  result, 
we  have  two  great  divisions :  (i)  a  complete  political  theory 
(II-1V  and  most  of  V;  Books  VIII  and  IX  are  also 
political);  (ii)  in  relation  to  (i),  a  theory  of knowledge (V— "V 'III 
and  X).  In  this  second  division  the  Republic  should  be 
taken  in  conjunction  with  the  Thecetetus ;  it  takes  a  positive 
dogmatic  attitude  with  regard  to  those  points  which  the 
latter  treats  in  form  of  search.  It  is  probable  that  this 
(excepting  Book  X)  is  the  only  part  of  the  Republic  written 
in  the  third  period,  showing  Plato's  theory  as  it  does,  in  the 
more  developed  stage. 

The  German  line  of  thought  tends  to  regard  Plato  as 
a  connected  and  consistent  thinker.  Grote,  on  the  other 
hand,  finds  him  inconsistent  with  himself  at  different  stages 
of  his  philosophy.  It  is  for  us  to  distinguish  him  in  his  nega- 
tive attitude  (Thecetetus)  and  his  positive  attitude  [Republic). 


204  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

It  is  in  the  philosophical  part  of  the  Republic  that  the  latter, 
viz.  his  dogmatic  Idealism,  is  most  fixed  and  characteristic, 
though  not  yet  in  its  final  form.  It  undergoes  further 
development  in  the  Parmenides,  Sophistes,  Philebus,  and 
Timceus,  certain  parts  of  the  Republic  theory  being  dropped, 
others  exclusively  developed  and  emphasised,  though  nothing 
is  added. 

Now  the  Thtcetetus  is  obviously  preparatory  to  a  possible 
solution  of  the  question  of  the  problem  of  knowledge 
universally  put,  first  in  Phcedo  and  Republic,  later  in  Par- 
menides, Sophistes,  Philebus,  and  Timceus,  which  four  embody 
the  earlier  solution  in  a  modified  form.  It  sweeps  away 
previous  insufficient  solutions  as  a  preparation  for  one  thaW 
shall  be  complete,  while  itself  containing  no  direct  statement 
of  his  ideas.  Is  then  the  Thecetetus  preparatory  to  the  Republic 
and  Phcedo  {ante  B.C.  367),  or  to  the  remaining  four 
{post  360)  ? 

We  must  distinguish,  in  the  dialogue,  the  essential  from 
the  unessential.  It  has  two  episodes,  very  striking  but  not 
related  to  the  general  argument,  viz.  an  artistic  description 
of  the  Socratic  method,  and  a  comparison  of  the  man  of 
the  world  with  the  philosopher.  The  brilliancy  of  these 
episodes  makes  many  call  the  dialogue  an  early  work,  the 
later  dialogues  not  containing  writings  of  this  kind,  but  this 
does  not  prove  much.  However  that  may  be,  apart  from  these 
episodes  we  get  a  consideration  of  three  answers  to  the 
question  What  is  knowledge  (e  n  10-7-9/117)  ?  current  in  Plato's 
day: — (1)  Knowledge  is  sense-perception;  (2)  Knowledge 
is  true  opinion ;  (3)  Knowledge  is  true  opinion,  pera  \6yov,  i.e. 
with  a  rational  explanation  or  definition.  All  these  views 
had  unquestionably  found  expression  before  Plato  wrote, 
though,  except  the  first,  not  before  Socrates  lived.     Plato 


xx.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  205 

found  them  all  insufficient.  He  first  assigns  (1)  to  Pro- 
tagoras, then  connects  it  with  the  Heracleitean  doctrine  of 
perpetual  flux.  All  the  physicists,  so  far  as  they  touched 
on  the  problem  of  knowledge  at  all,  gave  the  first  answer. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  it  really  coincided  with  all  that 
Protagoras  meant  when  he  put  forward  his  doctrine  of 
homo  mensura;  it  remains  the  obvious  answer  of  practical 
every-day  men. 

Note  in  passing  the  remarkable  affinity  of  Protagoras 
and  Hume.  Both  were  Individualists  and  Relativists ;  and 
Protagoras  anticipated  many  of  Hume's  sceptical  results. 
His  treatise  on  Truth,  from  which  Plato  quotes,  was  pro- 
bably not  a  developed  consideration  of  the  subject,  or  we 
should  have  more  of  it  in  the  Thecetelus.  Plato  himself 
developed  the  view  of  Protagoras,  imputing  to  him  a  more 
thorough-going  notion  of  the  relativity  of  sense  than  even 
the  latter  held,  and  thus  makes  way  for  his  own  position. 
By  exaggerating  the  relativity  of  sense  he  throws  us  back 
on  something  opposed  to  sense ;  whereas  modern  philosophy 
has  shown  that,  even  though  sense  as  such  is  not  knowledge, 
there  is  no  real  knowledge  apart  from  sense. 

The  third  view  of  knowledge  belongs  in  a  sense  to 
Socrates  and  Plato  themselves,  /nera  \6yov  referring  either 
to  the  Socratic  definition  by  enumeration  of  elements,  or  to 
the  earlier  Platonic  definition  by  characteristic  difference. 
The  second  view  joins  closely  to  the  first  and  belongs  to  no 
particular  thinker.  In  explaining  it  Plato  shows  pyscho-  , 
logically  that  opinion  is  sense  intelligently  interpreted,  i  e. 
is  perception  involving  representation.  (This  he  illustrates 
by  the  metaphors  of  wax  and  the  pigeons.)  Here,  while 
he  makes  light  of  the  view  as  answering  his  epistemo- 
logical  question,  he  shows  great  psychological  insight,  his 


2o6  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

explanation  of  perception  being  worthy  of  ranking  beside 
Hume's  account  of  imagination. 

The  argument  that  knowledge  is  sensation,  is  disposed 
of  by  Plato  through  the  fact  that  knowledge  is  the  activity  of 
the  soul  itself.  If  we  see,  it  is  through  the  soul's  instrument. 
The  cognition  of  the  soul,  i.e.  its  powers  of  comparison,  are 
not  attainable  through  sense.  Sense  is  not  even  an  element 
of  knowledge. 

This  last  assertion  is  Plato's  characteristic  exaggeration, 
and  leads  up  to  his  theory  that  knowledge  consists  in  merely 
thinking  of  our  ideas.  How  this  position  was  taken  up  and 
modified  by  modern  Rationalist  thought,  how  Locke  and  his 
school  vindicated  sense,  how  for  Condillac  knowledge  wa? 
sense  transformed,  how  Kant  developed  Leibniz's  conception 
of  knowledge  as  arising  from  intellectual  predispositions 
into  '  forms,'  while  requiring  sense  to  furnish  '  matter,'  we 
have  already  seen.  Af.er  all  Plato  may  be  said  to  have 
adumbrated  modern  views,  for  he  practically  committed 
himself  to  the  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  an  affair  of  mental 
activity,  the  furnishing  forth  of  certain  ideas  {koivu)  on 
occasion,  and  by  comparison,  of  sensations. 

Into  his  discussion  of  '  Knowledge  is  true  opinion,'  Plato 
again  insinuates  much  acute  psychology,  especially  as  to 
the  imagination  that  is  present  in  perception  (true  opinion), 
and  distinguishes  the  latter  from  illusion  (false  opinion). 
Opinion,  for  him,  is  intellectual  representation  of  sense. 
Note  the  grounds  on  which,  namely,  in  the  example  of  the 
lawyer,  he  bases  his  rejection  of  this  definition  of  knowledge  : 
the  argument  is  another  preparation  for  his  theory  of 
ideas.  True  opinion  rests  on  intelligent  perception  of  sense 
(answer  2  being  resolved  into  answer  1),  and  therefore,  being 
concerned  with  sense,  is  not  knowledge.     On  his  distinction 


xx.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  207 

between  opinion  (8u£a)  and  thinking  (Sidroia)  he  bases  his 
whole  theory  of  ideas. 

The  third  view  breaks  down  because  Ao'-yos-,  in  any  of 
its  three  senses,  viz.  description,  induction  of  particulars, 
division  (bringing  species  under  genus),  is  shown  to  be 
involved  in  the  meaning  of  opinion — is  a  working  with 
sense,  i.  e.  with  particular  experience  relative  to  the  individual 
— and  is  therefore  no  adequate  expression  of  knowledge. 
Hence  answer  (3)  is  resolved  into  answers  (1)  and  (2).  The 
dialogue  ends  abruptly. 

Plato's  theory  of  knowledge  in  the  Republic  is  set  forth 
in  connexion  with  the  education  of  the  Guardian  or  philo- 
sopher. Thus  this  epistemology  is  linked  with  his  doctrine 
of  the  state  and  the  notion  of  virtue.  Here  (end  of  Book  V) 
he  recognises  knowledge  and  opinion  as  opposed.  But 
afterwards  we  find  him  opposing  knowledge  (having  being 
for  its  object)  to  ignorance  (as  related  to  the  non-existent), 
opinion  coming  midway  (having  as  its  object  multiplex 
experience).  Later  on,  however  (end  of  Book  VI),  igno- 
rance is  dropped  from  consideration.  None  of  the  diffi- 
culties discussed  in  the  Thecetetus  occur  here  ;  they  have  either 
vanished  or  not  yet  arisen,  according  to  the  date  of  the 
latter.  Plato  dwells  rather  on  multiplicity  than  on  becoming, 
distinguishing  the  Idea  from  its  manifold  manifestations.  His 
great  positive  doctrine  grew  up  in  him  in  relation  to  the  view 
of  Socrates,  that  knowledge  is  of  the  universal.  Socrates 
cared  only  for  general  ethical  conceptions ;  and  he  sought 
to  get  at  our  concepts  or  universal  notions,  for  purposes  of 
regulation,  by  means  of  analysis  or  definition.  Plato  applied 
the  Socratic  analysis  (explication,  definition)  of  the  ethical 
notion  to  metaphysic.  The  object  of  knowledge,  he 
maintained,  is  more  real  than  the  object  of  opinion  or  of 


208  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.         [Lect. 

sense.  The  idea  is  what  really  is,  though  the  object  of 
opinion  is  related  to  the  idea.  Nevertheless  the  ethical 
conception  is  uppermost  with  Plato  also.  The  idea  of  the 
Good  is  the  highest  with  which  knowledge  is  conversant, 
and  is  its  ultimate  end. 

In  the  sixth  book  Plato  works  out  the  philosopher's 
position  in  the  world  and  the  state.  We  may  in  this  con- 
nexion compare  the  first  two-thirds  of  the  book  with  the 
episode  of  the  philosopher  and  the  man  of  the  world  in  the 
ThecEleius.  The  strain  is  the  same,  although  in  the  Republic 
there  is  the  additional  and  apparently  inconsistent  conception 
that  the  philosopher,  even  if  unpractical,  ought  to  be  ruler. 
After  this  episode  Plato  again  reverts  to  epistemology  in  a* 
passage  of  great  importance.  Note  how  he  dwells  on  the 
idea  of  the  Good  as  the  highest  with  which  knowledge  is  con- 
versant, how  it  is  related  to  other  ideas,  and  finally  the  illus- 
tration of  the  sun.  Good  is  the  ultimate  end  of  knowledge, 
the  true  aim  of  all  real  philosophy. 

In  the  last  pages  of  this  book  he  advances  beyond  his 
position,  at  the  end  of  Book  V,  as  to  knowledge  and  opinion 
(illustrated  by  the  section  of  a  line),  in  distinguishing  between 
the  work  of  reason  (vovs)  and  that  of  understanding  (Sidvoui), 
and  between  opinion  as  belief  (jrumy)  and  as  conjecture 
(fiVao-t'u),  both  belief  and  conjecture  being  concerned  with 
particulars,  that  is,  with  sense-experience.  In  both  reason 
and  understanding  we  are  occupied  with  ideas,  with  the 
abstract,  with  knowledge,  but  in  understanding  we  bring  in 
certain  sensible  manifestations,  namely,  in  mathematics,  the 
highest  of  the  special  sciences,  while  in  purely  rational  know- 
ledge we  are  occupied  with  pure  ideas  (dialectic).  Thus  the 
doctrine  given  in  Book  V  is  here  expanded  and  developed. 
But  distinguish  carefully  the  method  of  dialectic  and  the  method 


xx.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  209 

of  dianoetic  (special  science).  Plato  is  very  modern  here,  and 
it  was  he  who  originated  the  distinction  between  reason  and 
understanding.  He  practically  marked  out  the  whole  sphere  of 
philosophy.  In  the  seventh  book  he  gives  a  most  remarkable 
classification  of  the  sciences,  which  holds  against  some  of  the 
present  day  \ 

Dialectic  is  rational  conversance  with  ideas,  is  in  fact  philo- 
sophy. As  method  Plato  opposes  it  to  that  of  the  sciences, 
taking  mathematics  as  representing  the  latter.  Mathematics, 
he  said,  starts  from  hypotheses,  working  deductively  by 
synthetic  combination,  without  going  back  to  question  the 
fundamental  data  (axioms  and  definitions)  whence  it  starts, 
whereas  the  philosopher  is  concerned  to  inquire  into  these. 
Philosophy  is  conversant  with  ideas  as  such;  science,  with 
ideas  as  they  may  be  sensibly  represented. 

Mathematics  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  only  differentiated 
science  in  ancient  time ;  in  Plato,  however,  a  multiplicity 
of  sciences  is  mentioned.  And  note  the  order  of  study  in 
the  sciences  prescribed,  after  music  and  gymnastics,  under  the 
system  of  training  for  a  philosopher.  The  philosopher  is  to 
be  trained  in  the  abstract  consideration  of  sensible  things,  as 
suggestive  of  reality  beyond  sense.  Scientific  considerations 
should  lead  up  to  philosophy.  Under  the  former  the  most 
prominent  is  the  numerical  aspect  of  things.  It  was  not  till 
Post-Platonic  thought  that  arithmetic  was  subordinated  to 
geometry.  Euclid,  for  exam  pie. gives  his  arithmetical  theory 
of  proportions  (Books  VI-IX)  after  treating  (in  Books  I-IV) 
of  notions  of  space.  But  ariihmetic  is  more  general,  and 
Comte  followed  Plato  in  giving  it  priority  as  an  abstract 
science  of  wider  application  than  geometry.     Plato,  again, 

1  The  simile  of  the  cave  in  Book  VII  is  an  application  of  the  end 
of  Book  VI. 


210  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

saw  that  before  we  pass  from  the  formal  to  the  actual  con- 
sideration of  things  we  must  deal  with  solid  geometry  and 
astronomy.  Comte  followed  him  here  also,  including  physics. 
Plato's  statements  show  that  physics  was  studied  in  his  time, 
but  it  was  not  till  Galileo  that  its  position  was  rightly 
recognised. 

In  Book  X  of  t^e  Republic  we  have  a  statement  of  Plato's 
theory  of  ideas  (see  ante,  Lecture  VIII).  The  meaning 
attached  by  him  to  idea  is  not  the  more  modern  one  of  merely 
'  something  before  the  mind,'  but  that  of  something  objectively 
real — a  meaning  that  comes  out  in  the  equivalent  term  '  form.' 
Corresponding  to  any  concept,  which  we  form  psychologically 
by  bringing  together  a  multitude  of  particular  experiences,*" 
there  is  in  the  region  of  existence,  of  reality,  a  Form  or  Idea. 
We  get,  for  example,  a  concept  of  '  bad  '  by  comparison  of 
particular  bad  things,  but  there  is  a  real  Bad  to  which  our 
concept  is  related.  Six  different  kinds  of  Ideas  are  put 
forward  in  the  Republic  : — (i)  The  supreme  Idea,  that  of  the 
Good.  Plato  sought  to  establish  a  hierarchy  of  ideas,  headed 
by  this  one,  but  when  he  tries  to  fix  the  relation  of  the  Good 
to  other  ideas,  he  betrays  uncertainty  and  incompleteness. 
(2)  Ideas  of  qualities  akin  to  the  Good,  e.g.  the  just,  the 
honourable,  &c.  (3)  Ideas  of  natural  objects — man,  horse,  &c. 
(4)  Ideas  of  artificial  things,  e.  g.  bed.  (5)  Ideas  of  relations, 
such  as  equal,  like,  &c.  (6)  Ideas  of  qualities  antagonistic 
to  the  Good,  e.  g.  unjust. 

Such  is  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  account  for  know- 
ledge. In  the  Phccdo,  where  the  epistemological  position  is 
parallel  to  that  in  the  Republic,  he  entered  more  closely  into 
the  relation  of  the  particular  to  the  universal,  of  the  particular 
thing  of  sense  to  the  pure  foim  or  idea.  Things  of  sense 
have  a  reality,  he  found,  only  to  the  extent  that  they  have 


xx.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  211 

participation  in  (jii8t£is),  or  presence  of  (napovaid),  the  idea, 
or  communion  (koivwvIo)  of  the  idea  with  the  thing.  And 
because  there  are  ultimate  realities  in  which  sensible  things 
participate,  therefore  knowledge  is  possible.  From  sense  we 
may  mount  up  to  the  real,  using  especially  mathematics  as 
an  aid. 

Aristotle,  in  his  theorising  concerning  knowledge,  which 
occurs  especially  in  the  Meiaphysica,  criticises  Plato's  episte- 
mology  and  sets  up  a  counter-theory.  Reality  appeared  to 
him  an  ambiguous  term,  but  lay  rather  in  the  concrete  parti- 
cular thing  than  in  the  universal  or  Platonic  Idea,  yet  for  him 
too,  although  he  allowed  that  the  particular  does  really  exist, 
knowledge  is  of  the  universal  only.  Again,  therefore,  there 
arises  the  question  of  the  relation  between  universal  and 
particular,  which  he  settled  by  his  theory  of  essence. 

Now  Aristotle's  criticisms  referred  to  a  later  development  of 
Plato's  theory  than  that  given  in  the  Republic,  for  according  to 
Aristotle  the  Ideas  were  of  natural  things,  but  not  of  artificial 
things  or  relations.  Already  in  this  dialogue  and  the  Phcedo, 
Plato  expresses  dissatisfaction  with  his  theory,  and  proceeds 
in  the  Parmenides,  as  well  as  in  the  Sophisies,  Philebus,  and 
Timcrus,  to  criticise  it,  his  criticism  in  the  first-named  being 
more  shrewd  and  trenchant  than  Aristotle's.  We  find  him,  for 
instance,  anticipating  the  lalter's  objection  of  the  'third  man.' 
But  his  treatment  here  is  negative  only ;  the  self-criticism  is 
not  final,  as  Grote  suggested ;  yet  he  maintains  that  knowledge 
is  impossible  without  a  theory  of  ideas  as  real  existences.  It 
is  in  the  Twice  us  that  we  find  the  ultimate  expression  of  his 
doctrine,  propounded  with  more  confidence  and  definiteness, 
although  in  mythological  form,  than  in  any  other  dialogue,  and 
in  a  way  intended  to  evade  the  objections  raised  in  the 
Parmenides.     Here  all  Ideas  are  discarded  save  those  of  the 

r  2 


212  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

Good  and  of  Natural  Kinds,  and  it  is  a  question  whether 
from  these  he  does  not  exclude  all  that  are  not  living  things 
(including  plants).  Again  in  opposing  things  that  are  to 
things  that  are  merely  becoming,  i.  e.  things  of  sense,  he  no 
longer  looks  askance  at  the  latter  as  in  the  Republic,  but 
attempts  to  show  how,  by  positing  the  Ideas  of  the  Good  and 
of  Natural  Kinds,  we  can  account  for  things  as  we  find  them — 
for  the  coming  into  existence  of  the  natural  world.  He  gives 
us  in  fact  a  cosmogony.  He  is  eager  no  longer  to  get  from 
the  things  of  sense  to  reality,  but  from  the  region  of  reality  to 
come  down  to  an  explanation  of  our  actual  experience.  The 
crude  position  taken  up  in  the  Republic  has  been  transformed 
into  an  absolute  Idealism.  The  only  thing  that  really  is? 
is  mind — Mind  the  Universal,  and  finite  minds  in  relation  to, 
being  the  outcome  of,  the  Universal  Mind.  Experience  is  the 
mode  in  which  particular  minds  can  take  in  the  ultimate 
reality  that  is  concentrated  in  the  Universal  Mind.  Thus  the 
form  of  doctrine  in  the  Timceus  is  more  mystical,  more  removed 
from  actual  experience,  and  yet  it  is  given  to  account  for  this 
experience,  and  not  as  in  the  Republic  to  shun  all  explanation. 
The  Idea  is  no  longer  a  reality  apart ;  ultimate  reality  is  now 
for  him  certain  types  of  things  in  the  universal  mind,  and 
particular  things  are  related  to  these  types,  not  as  participating 
in  them — that  theory  has  dropped  out— but  as  images  or  like- 
nesses of  a  pattern,  model  or  archetype  (napdSeiypa).  They 
are  the  way  in  which  the  finite  mind  of  man  represents  to  itself 
the  thought  of  the  universal  or  divine  mind.  Only  Hegel 
reached  a  more  extreme  form  of  Idealism  than  this. 

We  see  then  that  between  the  earlier  position  of  the  Republic 
and  the  later  one  of  the  Timceus,  the  Thecetelus  is  important 
as  indicating  transition.  The  Parmenides  is  destructive  ;  the 
ThecEtetus  points  the  way  to  reconstruction.     With  the  final 


XX.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  213 

view  given  in  the  Timceus  Plato  never  shows  dissatisfaction. 
His  position  is  constant  to  this  extent,  that  knowledge  for 
him  from  first  to  last  is  conversance  of  mind  with  ideas  as  such, 
is  an  affair  of  the  soul's  activity  :  we  know  by  something  fur- 
nished forth  by  the  mind.  The  theory  of  knowledge  being 
attained  by  way  of  reminiscence  derived  from  previous  exist- 
ence as  held  in  the  Phcedo,  makes  way  for  what  is  the  relatively 
sane  doctrine  of  the  Timceus. 

Now  the  Theceietus  is  preparatory  to  a  theory  of  ideas.  The 
question  is,  which  theory  ?  The  earlier  or  the  later  ?  lis  form 
connects  the  dialogue  with  the  Republic,  but  close  inspection 
reveals  declarations  inconsistent  with  this,  viz.  Mind  knows 
common  notions  (koivo)  by  comparison  of  particulars,  and 
knows  them  only  through  this  process.  Whereas  in  the  R e/ub lie 
we  find  relations  (of  likeness,  &c.)  existing  already  as  ideas 
side  by  side  with  ideas  of  things.  In  the  Theceietus  Socrates 
tests  his  own  size  by  comparing  himself  with  different  people. 
In  the  Phcedo  Socrates  is  said  to  discover  his  own  relative  size 
through  participating  in  the  Ideas  of  smallness  and  largeness. 
In  such  ways  the  Theceuius  may  be  shown  as  inconsistent 
with  the  Republic  and  Phcedo,  but  not  wilh  the  Timceus. 

Hence  it  is  probable  that  the  first  draft  of  the  Theceietus  was 
a  negative  preparation  for  the  Republic,  written  about  the  same 
time,  but  recast  later  when  Plato  had  otherwise  or  more  fully 
developed  his  theory  of  ideas.  The  suggestions  in  it  that  arc 
assignable  to  Plato  himself  are  developed  not  in  the  Republic 
but  in  later  dialogues.  Plato  could  not  have  committed  him- 
self to  certain  positions  in  the  Republic  after  those  he  assumed 
in  the  Theceietus.  Moreover  the  •Sophist  carries  on  the  argu- 
ment of  the  latter,  and  is  again  connected  with  the  Polilicus, 
the  three  forming  a  trilogy.  Thus  the  stage  of  thought  in  the 
Theceietus  is  later  than  that  in  the  Republic. 


LECTURE   XXI. 

ON   THE   PSYCHOLOGY    OF   ARISTOTLE1. 

Reading. — Aristotle's  Psychology.  Greek  and  English,  with  Introduc- 
tion and  Notes  by  Edwin  Wallace,  1882.  Aristotle,  by  George 
Grote,  edited  by  Alexander  Bain  and  G.  C.  Robertson,  1883, 
ch.  xii.  Mental  Science,  by  Alexander  Bain,  1884,  Appendix  B, 
pp.  33-42,  (written  by  Grote).  Reid's  Works,  edited  by  Hamilton. 
Note  D,  pp.  826-30.  Also  Ueberweg's,  Erdmann's  or  Schwegler's 
(latest  German  edition)  histories  of  philosophy  on  Aristotle. 

Aristotle,  truly  named  '  the  master  of  those  who  know,' 
the  most  encyclopaedic  of  thinkers,  was  a  great  pathfinder 
in  both  science  and  philosophy.  He  is  the  creator  of  Logic, 
and  he  knew  it  (v.  Grote,  pp.  419-20);  he  also  laid  the 
foundations  of  scientific  psychology.  The  condition  of  the 
advancement  of  a  science  is  that  it  shaft  be  broken  off  from 
its  surroundings  and  worked  at  separately.  The  first  to  be 
separated,  Mathematics,  is  also  the  most  highly  perfected. 
Psychology  till  the  last  generation  had  not  been  broken  off; 
to  the  circumstance  that  it  has  now  been  singled  out  for 
separate  treatment  it  owes  its  advance  within  recent  years. 
Aristotle  had  an  overpowering  sense  of  the  relation  of 
psychology  to  philosophy,  yet  to  a  great  extent  he  separates 
psychology  in  a  manner  that  is  very  modern;  unfortunately 
his  successors  did  not  do  so.     There  is  hardly  a  suggestion 

1  From  a  special  course  on  the  De  Anima,  Oct.-Dec,  1890. 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  215 

made  by  modern  psychologists  as  to  the  lines  on  which 
psychology  might  have  advanced  that  was  not  anticipated 
by  Aristotle.  Psychology  is  a  science  apart,  of  a  special 
character,  self-contained.  It  is  science  in  respect  of  method, 
philosophy  in  respect  of  scope.  Philosophy  depends  on 
psychological  insight,  but  psychology  itself  is  concerned  with 
mind  as  it  appears,  and  does  not  deal  with  the  question  of 
the  ultimate  nature  of  the  soul.  Aristotle  however  includes 
this  question  in  his  psychology,  treating  the  science  both  as 
empirical  and  as  rational  (i.e.  metaphysically). 

He  commences  his  analysis  in  the  De  Anima  with  a 
metaphysical  definition  of  '  soul,'  his  psychological  notions 
being  overridden  by  his  desire  to  fit  soul  into  that  '  First 
Philosophy,'  as  he  called  it,  which  for  him  was  not  the  crown 
but  the  basis  of  his  system  of  knowledge.  It  is  possibly 
a  pity  that  he  committed  himself  at  the  start,  instead  of 
building  up  his  metaphysic  inductively,  for  his  metaphysic  is 
the  most  developed  part  of  his  work.  Herein  successive 
philosophers  have  been  no  wiser  than  he,  with  the  exception 
of  the  school  of  modern  psychology,  the  impetus  of  which 
was  given  by  England  and  Scotland,  but  which,  no  longer  as  at 
one  time  a  national  study,  is  now  chiefly,  though  by  no  mean^ 
exclusively,  carried  on  by  Germans.  Scholars  of  other  nations 
have  broken  up  that  national  characteristic  just  because,  and 
in  as  far  as,  they  have  put  aside  metaphysical  presuppositions. 
On  the  other  hand,  all  in  this  country  who  have  come  under 
the  Kantian  influence  have  inverted  the  order  of  English 
thought.  Even  Mr.  Spencer,  our  most  scientific  philosopher, 
has  broken  away  from  English  tradition,  and  begins  his 
system  with  an  attempted  solution  of  the  liddle  of  the  universe. 
Whereas  psychology  that  is  scientific  in  method,  from  the 
outset  takes  mental  facts  as  they  aie  tound,  and  tieats  them 


216  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

as  far  as  possible  apart  from  a  metaphysical  basis.  Agree- 
ment is  so  much  more  likely  in  psychology — though  desirable 
enough  in  philosophy — that  it  is  best  to  carry  on  psychological 
research,  and  be  patient  in  philosophical  conclusions.  For 
example,  how  does  Aristotle's  definition  of  soul  help  us  in 
his  psychology,  however  intelligible  that  definition  by  his 
first  philosophy  may  be  ?  It  had  been  better  had  he  limited 
his  psychological  inquiry  to  the  manifestations  of  mind  or 
soul  in  all  living  things. 

As  to  the  method  of  psychology,  he  asks,  (i)  Can  we  get 
at  the  truths  of  psychology  as  with  mathematics  by  demon- 
stration (dn68(t£is)  or  the  synthetic  method?  Or  (2)  can  we 
by  analysis  (oW/jeo-i?,  to  be  taken  in  its  evident  meaning  and* 
not,  as  Wallace  says,  as  ihe  Platonic  division),  i.e.  take 
consciousness  as  it  is  and  break  it  up  ?  Or  (3)  may  the  two 
be  combined?  His  answer  to  (1)  is,  No;  psychology  is  not 
a  pure  deductive  science,  and  cannot  therefore  be  so  treated. 
But  if  we  cannot  start  with  what  a  thing  is  and  work  down 
to  the  properties  of  it,  we  can  start  from  the  properties  and 
go  up  from  them  to  the  complete  conception l. 

Consider  now  Aristotle's  account  of  the  traditions  of 
thought  he  had  inherited.  Greek  philosophy  before  Aristotle 
culminates  in  Plato  and  Democritus.  By  these  two  philo- 
sophers Aristotle  thinks ;  to  both  he  is  related :  to  Democritus, 
whose  chief  theory  is  the  '  moving '  power  of  soul,  and  to 

1  I  do  not  approve  in  this  connexion  (Bk.  I,  ch.  i.  §  11)  of  Wallace's 
translating  StaKtKTiicos  by  transcendentalism  A  dialectician  is  a  logician 
chiefly  on  the  side  on  which  the  latter  deals  with  words.  He  also 
deals  with  probabilities ;  he  is  a  bare  speculator  as  opposed  to  one 
dealing  with  facts  ;  he  is  occupied  with  playing  with  words  as  opposed 
to  real  science.  He  works  deductively  apart  from  facts.  A  <pvaiKos 
on  the  other  hand  is  one  who  buries  himself  in  facts  and  works 
inductively.     Aristotle's  business  is  with  facts. 


xxl]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  217 

Plato,  whose  chief  stress  is  laid  on  soul  as  thinking.  Plato 
also  supports  the  theory  of  the  moving  power  of  soul.  And 
though  they  are  mutually  antithetical,  both  together  form  an 
antithesis  to  Aristotle.  He  puts  forward  Democritus  as  the 
typical  upholder  of  the  theory  of  soul  as  moving,  and  Plato 
as  the  emphasiser  of  soul  as  cognitive  (as  well  as  of  soul  as 
moving).  Thus,  from  Aristotle's  opposition  to  both  these 
theories,  the  antithesis  between  the  Idealism  or  Spiritualism 
of  the  one  and  the  Materialism  or  Atomism  of  the  other  does 
not  appear  in  his  works.  Aristotle  allowed  that  all  movement 
in  the  organism  has  a  mental  basis,  yet  this  power  of  motion 
is  not,  he  considered,  the  chief  characteristic  of  soul.  Nor, 
again,  does  he  deny  that  mind  (or  soul)  is  cognitive,  but  he 
rejected  the  then  prevalent  doctrine  of  hoiv  mind  moves  and 
knows.  The  prevalent  doctrine  of  cognition,  followed  by 
Democritus  and  Plato,  and  set  forth  by  Empedocles  (of 
Agrigentum,  fl.  b.c  444),  lay  in  the  supposed  likeness  or 
homogeneity  between  the  elements  of  mind  and  those  of 
which  external  things  consist,  in  virtue  of  which,  on  occasion 
of  contact  between  effluent  mental  elements  and  effluent 
external  things,  perception  could  and  did  come  to  pass.  In 
his  opposition  to  these  three  thinkers  Aristotle  seems  to  have 
been  working  towards  the  modern  distinction  between  subjec- 
tive and  objective.  Subjectivity  as  the  characteristic  of  mind 
is  not  stated  by  him,  yet  he  implies  it.  The  characteristic 
of  mind  lay  for  him  neither  in  power  to  move  body,  nor  in 
cognition,  nor  in  knowing  like  through  being  like.  Refusing 
to  consider  mind  as  body,  or  yet  apart  from  body,  he  op- 
posed to  the  physical  side  what  was  in  reality  the  subjective 
side,  although  he  termed  it  form  (e?Soj)  or  entelechy,  as 
that  which,  in  forming  body,  gives  reality  or  actuality  to  it 
(I,  ii-H,  i). 


218  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

There  was  at  first  in  the  history  of  Greek  philosophy  no 
thought  of  opposing  mind  to  matter;  that  idea  was  of  very 
gradual  development;  in  Pythagoras  we  get  more  away 
from  object;  in  the  nods  of  Anaxagoras  we  get  the  first 
suggestion  of  subject.  And  note  how  Socrates,  the  con- 
temporary of  Anaxagoras,  gets  on  to  concepts  and  away  from 
the  external,  though  without  any  distinct  theory.  Here  then 
it  is  that  Greek  philosophy  properly  so  called — at  least  as 
I  understand  philosophy — may  be  said  to  begin.  In  his 
pre-philosophic  thinking  however,  proceeding  as  this  does 
by  way  of  Animism,  man  does  not  refuse  to  consider  mind, 
nor  does  he  wait  to  make  the  distinction  between  mind  and 
body,  which  again  emerges  when  he  has  begun  to  philosophise." 
And  this  distinction  he  makes  not  only  in  himself  but  in 
everything.  Not  only  has  he  a  soul,  but  so  also  have  all,  even 
inanimate,  things — stones,  rivers,  &c.  What  for  him  is  soul  ? 
Another  kind  of  body,  ethereal,  attenuated,  but  still  a  body 
within  the  body.  The  idea  will  first  have  sprung  from 
the  thought  of  dream-life,  when  the  body  is  stationary,  but 
the  spirit  goes  abroad,  hunts,  fights,  &c,  in  the  man's  own 
shape.     The  ghost-story  is  a  survival  of  this. 

Now  how  far  are  there  traces  of  this  in  early  Greek 
philosophy  ?  We  find  all  Aristotle's  criticism  of  Democritus 
(in  the  De  Anima)  directed  against  a  kind  of  semi-scientific 
animism.  And  we  may  suppose  that  Thales  and  his 
successors,  by  occupying  themselves  with  the  object-world 
alone,  and  dropping  all  reference  to  the  soul,  emerged  from 
the  prevailing  animism,  till  in  this  respect  and  to  this  extent 
Democritus,  with  his  atomistic  theory,  set  forth  what  was  an 
unconsciously  transformed  animism.  Plato,  again,  Im- 
materialist  as  he  was,  making  the  soul's  immateriality  a 
ground  for  its  immortality,  has  remnants  of  primitive  animism 


xxi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  219 

in  him.  He  speaks,  metaphorically  if  not  literally,  of  the 
soul  being  extended  in  the  body,  and  so  he  too  incurs 
Aristotle's  criticism.  Both  Aristotle,  however,  and  in  modern 
times  Grot*,  have  taken  Plato  too  literally  to  do  justice  to  his 
poetical  mode  of  exposition.  But  wherever  Plato  stands 
as  to  animism,  Aristotle  at  least  is  absolutely  free  from  it,  as 
is  shown  by  his  attacks  on  Plato  and  Democritus.  Modern 
science  in  speaking  of  mind  as  subjective  is  non-animistic, 
but  not  more  so  than  Aristotle  was. 

Not  that  animism  died  through  Aristotle  !  It  reappears  in 
Epicurus,  and  in  the  early  Christian  Fathers— in  Tertullian, 
e.g.,  who  even  ridiculed  the  non-animistic  position — and 
in  Jewish  thought  both  before  and  in  the  Christian  era.  In 
proportion  as  mediaeval  thinkers  follow  Aristotle  they  are 
rid  of  animism.  But  it  was  not  till  Descartes  that  for 
philosophy  at  least  the  idea  was  destroyed,  and  the  notion  of 
mind  as  non-extended  finally  accepted.  To-day  students 
of  physical  science  are  in  the  position  of  the  earliest  Greek 
thinkers,  setting  aside  mind  altogether  in  order  to  consider 
external  facts. 

Yet  Aristotle,  Immaterialist  as  he  was.  would  not  take  soul 
apart  from  body,  but  held  that  we  can  only  study  mind  in 
relation  to  body,  and  as  manifested  in  all  sentient  beings1. 
See  how,  in  default  of  the  notion  of  subjective,  he  brings  out 
logos,  in  calling  mental  states  Xo'yot  tpvXot — a  logical,  as 
opposed  to  a  physical  view 2.  It  is  true  that  in  relating  mind 
to  body  he  makes  some  reservation  in  the  case  of  the  voiis, 
and  almost  commits  himself  to  saying  that  thinking  has  no 
relation  to  body.     Yet  his  meaning  is  rather  that  thought  is 

1  Cf.  e.g.  his  allusion  to  anger.     De  Anima,  I,  ch.  L  §§  10,  n. 
a  ' ...  it  is  clear  that  the  feelings  IvaQr)    are  materialised  notions 
(\6yot  tvvKoi).'     Ibid. 


220  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

distinguishable,  not  xa>Pl(TT°v,  or  separable,  from  body.  Never 
does  he  say,  like  Plato,  that  mind  is  incorporeal,  immaterial  \ 

Plato,  for  that  matter,  is  inconsistent  on  this  point.  In  the 
Phccdo  he  says  that  mind  or  soul  is  absolutely  incorporeal; 
in  the  Republic  and  Timccus  he  lodges  it  about  the  body  and 
holds  that  only  thinking  goes  on  in  the  brain.  This  was 
owing  to  Plato's  psychology  being  so  far  unscientific  as  to 
serve  a  purpose,  either  political,  ethical  or  theological.  In  the 
Timaus  he  is  a  speculative  theologian,  considering  the  self- 
manifestation  of  God ;  in  the  Republic  he  is  philosophising, 
ethically  and  politically.  Hence  his  concepts  and  language 
vary  with  his  different  standpoints.  Whereas  Aristotle,  as 
far  as  he  went,  was  thoroughgoing  and  consistent. 

As  to  Aristotle's  definition  of  mind  as  entelechy,  or  '  first 
entelechy,'  no  word  perhaps  better  interprets  this  in  its  bearing 
upon  body  than  that  generally  adopted  of  realisation  or 
actualisation.  Mind  as  form  gives  reality  or  actuality  to  body, 
which  without  its  in-working  (ivtpyeia)  remains  merely  a 
potentiality  (Mra/uj)  like  unhewn  stone.  Mind  is  implicated 
in  body,  but  is  distinguishable  from,  superior,  prior  to  it. 
Mind  is  not  body,  nor  yet  a  harmony  resulting  from  body, 
but  is  necessary  to  give  body  a  real  existence  (II,  ch.  i). 

The  force  however  in  the  term  entelechy  lay  for  Aristotle 
in  the  telos — end  or  purpose.  What  most  struck  him  in  the 
universe  was  end  or  purpose  everywhere  inherent.  A  thing, 
he  held,  was  real  in  so  far  as  it  had  an  end  or  purpose — 
of  its  own,  more  or  less,  if  animate;  if  inanimate,  not  of  its 
own.     And  the  higher  animate  beings  are  conscious  of  their 

1  This  is  said  with  reference  to  the  individual  human  mind,  and 
not  to  the  vovs  xwPiaT"i  or  cosmic  mind,  which  as  an  ontologically 
prior  reality  Aristotle  calls  airaOtjS  nal  ajHyqs  (De  An.  iii.  5).  See 
infra,  p.  227,  and  p.  229. — Ed. 


xxi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  221 

end  ;  they  are  self- realising.  Now  in  proportion  as  there  is 
the  getting  an  end  to  the  individual  existence  and  the  working 
towards  it,  there  is  mind  manifested.  Mind  or  soul  is  a  kind 
of  life,  and  life  as  mentally  endowed  is  self-realising.  Aristotle 
first  introduced  the  idea  of  an  organ,  of  something  formed  to 
carry  out  a  particular  purpose  or  function.  The  notion  of 
organism  as  distinct  from  a  mechanical  aggregate  was  that 
which  subserves  a  purpose,  and,  in  a  mental  organism,  its 
own  purpose.  Object  subjectively  realised,  object  realised 
by  a  subject  who  knows — this  was  what  he  was  really  groping 
after  and  working  towards.  This  comes  out,  for  instance,  in 
his  theory  of  sensation,  and,  by  rendering  it  epistemological, 
spoils  it  as  psychology  (II,  ch.  iv.  §§  1-6). 

Aristotle's  division  or  scheme  of  soul — nutritive,  sentient, 
cognitive  (the  last  I  have  condensed,  since  the  division  is 
practically  threefold) — is  not  a  logical  division  under  a  genus, 
but  is  in  the  order  of  increasing  connotation.  Its  divisions 
are  rather  to  be  described  as  stages  in  the  development 
of  soul,  constituting  an  evolutionary  concept,  as  Grote  might 
have  called  it,  or  concept  of  the  gradual  differentiation  or 
progressive  development  of  mind — a  wonderful  stroke  of 
insight,  and  a  striking  advance  on  Plato's  psychology1. 
There  is  a  verbal  likeness  to  Plato's  three-fold  phase  or 
division  of  soul — the  appetitive,  the  passionate,  the  rational — 
but  this  distinction  was  intended  to  subserve  an  ethical 
purpose,  and  is  not  fertile  scientifically.  Aristotle's  scheme 
is  good  psychology.  His  kinds  of  soul  are  stages  of  psychic 
development,  just  as  we  call  sense  not  a  division  in  psychic 

1  Note  him,  in  I,  i.  §  6  and  elsewhere,  'worrying'  over  the  choice 
between  a  faculty-theory  and  an  inquiry  into  facts  and  laws  deter- 
mining facts;  now  keeping  clear  of  the  former  and  now  getting 
entangled. 


222  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

life  but  a  stage,  inasmuch  as  children  feel,  will  and  know  in 
relation  to  sense  alone  (Elements  of  Psychology,  Lect.  VIII). 

The  chapters  on  Sense  (Book  III,  i-ii)  are  very  remarkable. 
The  first  serious  attempt  to  form  a  theory  of  sense  in  Greece 
was  that  made  by  Democritus — a  theory  so  effectively 
striking  that  we  still  use  his  terms.  Things,  he  held,  are 
constantly  throwing  off  images  (ttSwXa),  which  pass  into  the 
body  through  the  peripheries  of  the  sense-organs  and  are 
stored  up  in  the  brain  to  be  produced  by  memory.  This  he 
connects  with  his  general  atomistic  theory.  He  makes  all 
the  organs  of  sense  developments  of  Touch,  a  view  that  is 
to  a  great  extent  borne  out  by  modern  biology  with  regard  to 
taste  and  smell,  and  perhaps  to  hearing  and  sight,  although 
with  regard  to  sight  embryology  presents  difficulties. 

Plato  had  no  proper  doctrine  of  sense ;  he  considered  the 
subject  rather  from  an  ascetic  point  of  view.  The  Sophists 
however  had  anticipated  some  of  the  modern  theories, 
especially  that  of  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  and 
generally  of  qualities  as  subjective  experiences  of  our  own 
which  we  project  into  objects.  This  was  pre-eminently  the 
case  with  Protagoras  in  his  sceptical  conclusion  as  to  reality — 
that  '  truth  is  what  each  man  troweth. '  Their  doctrine,  it  is 
true,  was  not  based  on  any  scientific  theory  of  sense.  Plato, 
as  we  know,  understood  this  doctrine  of  sense,  but  cared  not 
for  it.     Knowledge,  as  he  conceived  it,  lay  elsewhere. 

Now  Aristotle,  while  he  is  unanticipated  in  the  account  he 
gives  of  the  different  kinds  of  sensation,  is  reactionary  with 
respect  to  the  Sophistic  theory  of  the  relativity  of  sense.  He 
does  not  distinguish  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities 
of  matter  ;  all  qualities  for  him  are  primary,  embedded  in 
things.  He  upholds  the  immanence,  for  example,  of  colour. 
The  deficiencies  in  his  doctrine  of  sense  arise  from  his  total 


xxi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  223 

ignorance  of  the  physiology  of  the  nervous  system  as  involved 
in  sensation.  Of  this  Plato  had  gathered  some  notion  from 
Hippocrates  and  others. 

Again  he  makes  no  distinction  between  sensation  and 
perception.  But  his  account  of  sense  is  very  good  and  in 
earnest,  complicated  though  it  is  by  the  philosophical  question 
of  the  relation  of  subject  to  object1.  He  insists  on  the 
fundamental  importance,  psychological  and  philosophical,  of 
Touch,  and  opposes  to  it  the  other  senses  as  not  needing 
a  medium.  Yet  even  in  Touch  there  is  a  kind  of  medium, 
namely,  the  skin. 

He  saw  in  sensation  a  process  to  be  explained  in  terms 
of  motion,  the  transmission  of  a  movement  from  object  to 
organ.  Nevertheless  he  had  no  clear  physical  doctrines 
of  medium  or  movement ;  his  concepts  are  metaphysical. 
Do  not  be  beguiled  into  seeking  parallels  with  modern 
mechanical  concepts :  Aristotle  had  no  notion  of  the  part 
played  by  nerve-centres,  while  we  cannot  define  sensation  out 
of  relation  to  these.  On  molecular  transmission  he  has  fallen 
back  from  the  position  reached  by  Democritus,  Hippocrates 
and  Plato,  who  discerned  atomic  motion  continued  inside. 
He  also  has  fallen  behind  them  with  respect  to  the  subjectivity 
of  sensation,  a  theory,  for  that  matter,  not  fully  developed 
till  the  days  of  Descartes,  Locke  and  Berkeley.  He  got 
instead  into  bad  metaphysic  as  to  the  relation  of  object  and 
subject,  finding  colour,  sound,  &c,  really  in  things ;  he 
expressly  rejected  Protagoreanism,  and  saved  himself  by 
juggling  more  or  less  with  8wapu,  and  cvepyeiq.  In  our  day 
it  is  said  that  colour,  physically  speaking,  is  the  result  of 

1  E.g.  Book  II,  ch.  v.  That  Aristotle  neglects  to  distinguish  in 
either  case  is  overlooked  by  Wallace,  whose  psychology  is  not  his 
strongest  point. 


224  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

molecular  motion  in  object,  medium  and  brain,  and  that, 
when  these  movements  are  propagated  up  to  the  brain,  then, 
psychologically  speaking,  a  state  of  consciousness  follows. 
And  we  find  that  we  ought  not  to  pretend  to  get  farther 
towards  bringing  nerves  and  consciousness  together;  indeed 
that  we  never  shall.  Aristotle's  theory  was  that  there  is  a 
potency  in  the  object  and  a  potency  in  the  organism,  and 
that  by  contact  we  get  an  actuality  through  both,  a  ratio 
established  between  object  and  organism  by  way  of  a  medium. 
Grote  will  here  be  found  helpful,  but  he  is  not  justified  in 
identifying  the  visual  medium  with  ether,  nor  with  our 
concept  of  mode  of  motion.  Aristotle  was  only  able  to 
invent  the  abstraction  '  transparency.'  Note  too  with  caution 
Grote's  big  words  for  the  medium  in  hearing  and  in  smell. 
Aristotle  gives  good  description  but  no  scientific  account ;  he 
gives  no  efficient  explanation,  metaphysical,  scientific  or  any 
other.  We  do  not  want  a  '  logos '  between  sensation  and 
object. 

Some  of  the  questions  raised  in  the  third  Book  (chh.  i,  ii) 
are  of  great  psychological  import ;  some  are  trivial,  e.  g.  the 
first : — why  we  can  have  only  five  senses,  the  answer  con- 
necting them  with  the  '  four  elements.'  We  actually  have 
more  ;  animals  may  have  more ;  we  may  be  developing  more. 
But  in  Aristotle's  day  there  was  no  fund  of  positive  know- 
ledge as  a  basis  for  further  inquiry. 

Part  of  his  doctrine  of  sensation  Aristotle  only  indicates 
here ;  it  is  to  be  sought  in  the  De  Sensu.  Grote's  references 
to  it  should  be  attended  to,  especially  the  passages  con- 
cerning our  apprehension  of  the  '  common  sensibles '  (rd 
Koivh  aladrjTd)  and  our  associations  of  two  '  sensibles.'  Aris- 
totle there  treats  of  the  'first  sentient'  (nparop  alaBrjTiKov), 
or  '  sensorium  commune,'   the  medium  between  soul   and 


xxi.]         Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  225 

sense-organ.  This,  physically  speaking,  is  for  him  the  heart. 
All  the  streams  of  movement  contributed  by  the  senses  go 
to  the  heart  by  way  not  of  the  blood  but  of  the  hot  air  in 
the  blood,  and  when  the  heart  is  reached  by  the  disturbance 
then  there  is  consciousness.  Thus  he  conceived  sense  as  one, 
fed  by  many  currents,  or  as  one  stem  with  many  branches. 
Hence,  he  thought,  we  can  have  sensations  common  to 
different  senses,  while  we  can  also  distinguish  between 
sensations  of  different  senses.  Here  we  have  the  herald  of 
the  expression  sensus  communis,  or  general  sense  (Cf.  Elements 
of  Psychology,  Lect.  IX).  In  the  De  Sensu  the  term  Koivrj 
a"ia6r}<ns  is  used  with  a  purely  psychological  meaning. 

Note  how,  though  in  a  crude  way,  he  raises  the  question 
of  self-consciousness : — seeing,  e.  g.,  and  '  perceiving '  that  we 
see  (Book  II,  ch.  ii). 

Grote's  very  cursory  notice  of  Aristotle's  '  common  sensibles' 
is  a  defect.  No  doctrine  has  had  a  more  remarkable  develop- 
ment than  this.  Hamilton  (in  his  '  Note  D  '  on  Reid)  brings 
out  a  complete  coincidence  between  it  and  the  doctrine  of 
Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities.  He  goes  so  far  as  to 
think  that  the  Koina  aisthela  may  be  reconciled  with  Reid's 
common  sense.  Perhaps  so,  yet  Aristotle  is  never  meta- 
physical on  this  point.  Democritus  and  Protagoras  had 
some  such  distinction,  viz.  between  qualities  that  were  really 
in  things,  such  as  motion,  and  qualities  imputed  to  things, 
such  as  colour,  which  were  derived  from  the  former  and  are 
thus  really  modes  of  motion.  Aristotle  called  them  (III, 
chapter  ii,  §  8)  partly  right,  partly  wrong.  Not  wholly 
rejecting  their  Relativism  he  did  not  like  it,  and  evaded  it 
by  rendering  all  sensations  in  terms  of  matter  and  form. 
This,  though  it  was  a  large,  coherent  doctrine,  was  scien- 
tifically retrograde.     All  progress  since  Descartes  has  been 

Q 


226  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [ixet. 

on  Democritean  lines.  Aristotle's  matter  and  form  is  no 
real  advance,  is  not  his  strong  point. 

But  if  this  is  so,  if  Aristotle  denies  subjectivity  not  only  in 
primary  but  also  in  secondary  qualities,  then  Hamilton's 
parallel  is  upset.  For  the  latter  there  is  a  reason,  if  not  an 
excuse.  Aristotle's  Koina  happen  to  coincide  in  the  main 
with  primary  qualities.  But  the  doctrine  of  the  Qualities  is 
metaphysical  with  a  psychological  basis,  whereas  Aristotle's 
distinction  between  common  and  particular  'sensibles'  is 
purely  psychological.  He  has  plenty  of  metaphysic,  but  this 
special  distinction  was  not  made  by  him  psychologically  as 
a  basis  for  metaphysic  as  we  make  it,  or  rather  as  Reid  and 
Hamilton  made  it.  But  both  these  thinkers  invariably 
confused  psychology  with  philosophy.  Aristotle  dimly  sees 
the  force  there  is  in  the  term  Koina,  but  does  not  realise  it 
(as,  e.  g.  in  his  allusion  to  touch  and  sight,  Grote,  p.  465  c). 
Since  Berkeley  we  have  denied  that  the  distinction  between 
primary  and  secondary  qualities  is  valid  ;  Protagoras  saw 
this  too.  Knowing  what  we  do  as  to  the  coefficient  of 
muscular  sense  in  sight  and  touch  we  say,  as  against 
Descartes,  Locke,  Berkeley  and  Aristotle,  that  the  senses  do 
not  as  such  give  us  '  common  sensibles.'  Aristotle's  followers 
themselves  soon  grew  dissatisfied  and  imputed  our  appre- 
hension of  the  Koina  to  intellect,  or  rational  apprehension. 
Apart  from  muscular  sense,  they  cannot  be  psychologically 
explained,  and  it  was  through  neglecting  this  that  the 
Scottish  school  fell  back  on  common  sense,  belief,  law  of 
the  conditioned  and  so  forth. 

Next '  we  have  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  reason  (vovs),  with 
the   interpolated    discussion   of    imagination    or    phantasy 

1  Book  III,  chh.  iii.-viii.  These  should  not  only  be  read  but 
wonted  at.     Wallace's  introduction  is  not  very  helpful. 


xxi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  227 

(cpavTao-ia).  This,  like  perception,  may  be  viewed  either 
subjectively  or  on  its  physiological  side.  Aristotle  considers 
both  aspects,  giving  in  the  germ  what  in  this  century  has  been 
developed  by  Professor  Bain,  who  uses  '  idea '  for  '  image.' 
The  subject  is  treated  more  fully  in  the  treatise  De  Afemoria, 
where  memory  is  distinguished  as  imagination  with  a  definite 
temporal  reference  (modern  psychology  can  say  little  more), 
and  where  there  are  suggestions  of  laws  of  association — ■ 
contiguity,  similarity  and  contrast.  Now  Aristotle  only 
notices  association  in  connexion  with  reminiscence.  This 
is  a  defect.  Under  association  we  simply  refer  to  certain 
modes  in  the  '  flow '  of  our  images,  whereas  reminiscence 
is  a  complex  intellectual  function  involving  volition. 

Why  should  there  be  so  little  here  on  imagination  ? 
Aristotle's  whole  doctrine  of  the  psychology  of  representative 
intellection  is  very  undeveloped,  inasmuch  as  his  discussion 
is  rather  epistemological  than  psychological,  namely,  on  the 
relation  of  thought  to  its  object ;  more,  it  is  metaphysical  or 
ontological,  involving  reference  to  an  outer  sphere  of  real 
being.  And  his  metaphysic  vitiates  his  psychology  here 
even  more  than  in  his  doctrine  of  sense.  He  asks  whether 
images  (0arr&para)  are  true  or  false;  these  are  matters  of 
opinion  (So'£. »),  and  opinion  may  be  either.  But  this  is  not 
psychology.  It  is  only  in  the  De  Memoria  that  in  this 
connexion  he  is  properly  psychological. 

Even  there  we  find  the  assertion  that  nous  comes  into  man 
from  without  (ClpaOtv).  Aristotle  could  not  in  fact  quite 
overcome  the  Zeitgeist  of  his  age  and  his  environment.  Nor 
had  he  Plato's  poetic  mantle  to  throw  around  himself;  he  is 
nothing  if  not  literal  and  prosaic.  Grote's  discursus  at 
this  stage  (p.  480  et  seq.),  connecting  the  w^j-doctrine  with 
Aristotle's  physics  and  cosmogony  is  quite  justified  by  that 

Q   ? 


228  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

phrase  '  from  without.'  Aristotle  saw  that  knowledge  was 
a  philosophical  question,  yet  he  has  not  treated  of  it  in  the 
Metaphysics,  where  his  theme  is  of  '  being  as  being/  always 
excepting  the  first  book,  with  its  discussion  of  the  principles 
of  knowledge  and  their  relation  to  sense.  Yet  here  Aristotle 
had  no  idea  of  working  out  a  theory  of  knowledge  as 
a  necessary  introduction  to  a  theory  of  being.  For  us,  as  we 
have  seen  (Lecture  I),  problems  of  being  have  since  Kant 
come  to  be  considered  as  subject  to  problems  of  knowledge. 
It  is  through  the  doctrine  of  knowledge  that  we  approach 
ontological  questions.  Many  a  modern  thinker  has  raised 
philosophical  questions  in  his  psychology,  but  Aristotle 
so  rode  off  on  them  as  to  neglect  the  psychology  of  the  ' 
intellect.  Yet  he  did  not  neglect  to  point  out  that  reason 
cannot  work  without  images.  Thought  requires  a  basis 
of  representative  imagination.  This  is  all  that  he  does  for 
the  theory  of  thought  as  a  mode  of  intellection. 

Here  note  the  remark  in  Grote  (p.  484  and  footnote  e) 
on  Aristotle's  '  Nominalism ' — good  in  substance,  though  the 
term  is  a  misnomer,  no  reference  having  been  made  to 
language  in  the  De  Anima.  Aristotle  only  said  that  we 
cannot  conceive  a  general  without  a  certain  amount  of 
particulars.  The  Nominalist  says  that  we  cannot  think 
in  general  without  the  help  of  a  name,  that  is,  except  by 
means  of  language.  This  at  least  is  Hobbes's  Nominali>m. 
Berkeley's  Nominalism  holds  that  we  cannot  think  without 
a  form,  that  is,  without  reference  to  the  particular.  Thus 
Berkeley  goes  no  farther  than  Aristotle.  But  there  is  no 
Nominalism  in  the  De  Anima.  To  this  extent  it  is  defective, 
that  the  relation  of  thought  to  language  is  passed  over. 
Yet  Aristotle  did  see  that  the  two  are  connected,  are  practi- 
cally the  same  thing  on  different  sides.      This  we  see  in 


xxi.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  229 

his  Logic,  where  he  always  deals  with  judgments  on  the  side 
of  language,  and  with  reasoning  as  expressed  in  arguments. 
And  suggestions  that  he  saw  this  are  to  be  found  up  and 
down  in  the  De  Am'ma,  yet  they  are  barely  to  be  so  called. 
All  is  quite  implicit. 

If  Aristotle  had  carefully  worked  out  the  psychological 
doctrine  of  thought,  and  considered  the  psychological  func- 
tion of  language,  he  would  have  seen  many  of  the  difficul- 
ties of  his  nous  (so  far  as  they  were  psychological)  disappear 
without  the  need  of  reference  to  celestial  bodies.  For  the 
question  of  thought  suggests  that  of  the  community  of  know- 
ledge, and  it  is  this  that  troubles  him — How  is  it  that  we  all 
come  to  think  alike  ?  How  have  we  a  common  consciousness  ? 
Imagination  is  of  the  individual  consciousness,  but  that  thought 
is  common  consciousness  (cf.  Reid's  '  Common  Sense ')  is 
inevitably  begctten  by  a  consideration  of  the  psychology  of 
thought.  It  is  to  explain  this  that  he  goes  out  to  the  Kosmos, 
to  theories  of  the  heavenly  spheres,  to  an  Eternal  Nous,  who 
enters  in  and  informs  each  of  us,  if  not  in  full  purity  as  with 
God,  yet  so  as,  by  acting  on  our  imaginations,  to  emerge 
in  common  consciousness.  And  all  this  to  fill  up  the  void 
left  by  ignoring  language  as  a  social  act,  a  bond  holding 
men  together ! 

The  relation  of  noils  to  mind  or  soul  generally,  and  of  nous 
as  active  and  passive,  has  forme  1  the  battle-ground  of  Aristo- 
telian commentators  all  along,  opportunity  being  given  by 
Aristotle's  obscurities  and  deficiencies.  For  instance,  while 
Grote  very  decisively  negatives  the  view  that  Aristotle  pre- 
dicated immortality  of  the  individual  intellect,  the  mediaeval 
commentators  argue  with  equal  decision  for  the  opposite  con- 
clusion. I  think  that  he  is  too  positive  as  to  what  Aristotle's 
utterances  may  be  held  to  warrant.     Again,  Grote  speaks  very 


230  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

clearly  on  the  contrast  between  reason  as  active  and  reason  as 
passive  (yovs  ttoitjtikos,  vovs  iradrjTucos,  De.  An.  Ill,  v).  Wallace, 
too,  among  the  liberties  he  now  and  then  takes  in  text  and 
translation,  applies  the  former  adjective  to  noils  in  his  index. 
Yet  nowhere  does  Aristotle  himself  call  nous  active  (noirjTiKos) ; 
he  only  suggests  the  term. 

I  hold  that  Aristotle  was  staggering  on  this  doubtful  ground, 
and  that  commentators  have  rushed  in  to  wrangle  where  he 
feared  to  tread. 

Once  more,  if  Aristotle  compared  mind  at  birth  to  a  blank 
writing  tablet,  he  meant  only  that  the  nous  was  not  a  fixed 
body  of  innate  principles,  but  something  potential,  which  could 
grow  and  develop. 

Note.  I  much  regret  that  no  notes  are  forthcoming  on  Aristotle's 
theory  of  conation  (Book  III,  chh.  ix-xi),  with  which  the  lecturer 
had  announced  the  intention  of  dealing  at  the  end  of  the  course.  For 
further  discussion  on  emotion  students  were  referred  to  Aristotle's 
Rhetoric  and  Ethics. — Ed. 


LECTURE    XXII. 

ON    THE    METHOD    OF    DESCARTES1. 

Reading. —  (Euvres  de  Descartes,  ed.  Jules  Simon,  1844.  '  Discours  sur 
la  Methode.'  (Euvres  choisies  de  De  dries,  ed.  Gamier,  1876. 
'  Discours  de  la  Methode;'  'Regies  pour  la  Direction  de  l'Esprit.' 
The  Method,  Meditations,  and  Selections  from  the  Principles  of 
Descartes,  ed.  J.  Veitch,  1879.     'Discourse  on  Method.' 

Such  is  the  importance  of  Descartes  in  the  history  of 
modern  philosophy  that  it  behoves  us  to  enter  in  some  detail 
into  the  development  of  his  thought.  He,  if  any  one,  lets 
us  know — especially  in  the  Discourse  on  Method  and  the 
Meditations — what  were  the  most  intimate  workings  of  his 
thought,  what  he  started  from,  what  he  came  to,  and  what 
he  was  aiming  at.  We  must  first  see  that  we  keep  in  mind 
the  circumstances  of  his  life. 

Born  1596,  of  a  noble  family  in,  though  not  of,  Touraine, 
Rene"  des  Cartes  went  at  eight  years  of  age,  a  lad  weakly 
in  constitution  but  precocious,  to  the  new  and  famous 
Jesuit  school  of  La  Fleche,  the  Jesuits  having  returned  to 
France  after  the  conversion  of  Henry  IV.  From  the  first 
the  Jesuits  have  sought  to  a  tract  men  of  the  world  to  the 
Church  by  accommodating  the  Church  to  the  world,  chiefly 
by  giving  a  highly  efficient  secular  education  to  the  young. 
They  have  always  been  well  versed  in  the  best  thought  of 

1  From  lectures  delivered  April  to  June,  1880. 


232  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

the  country,  and  have  bent  that  knowledge  to  the  interests  of 
the  Church ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  have  ever  upheld  and 
still  uphold  the  Scholastic  philosophy,  especially  as  taught 
by  Aquinas.  Descartes'  subsequent  strictures  on  education 
did  not  include  any  reflexion  on  his  own  teachers,  with  whom 
he  ever  remained  on  friendly  terms.  Trained  thoroughly 
in  Scholastic  traditions,  he  was  also  made  proficient  in 
mathematics.  This  had  been  neglected  by  the  Schoolmen, 
but  had  revived  at  the  Renaissance,  when  the  work  both 
of  Euclid  and  of  the  Arabs  (algebra)  came  to  be  known. 

Bacon,  who  during  Descartes'  early  youth  was  deep  in 
politics,  and  in  the  publication  of  the  Advancement  of 
Learning  and  the  Novum  Organon,  was  almost  absolutely  ' 
ignorant  of  mathematics,  and  had  no  notion  of  its  use  in  the 
study  of  nature.  His  Inductive  Method  has  no  place  for 
it,  and  hence  he  does  not  properly  head  the  modern  scientific 
movement.  To  the  extent  that  mathematics  has  rendered 
the  latter  possible,  Descartes  is  the  pioneer.  Wolsey's 
chair  of  mathematics  at  Oxford  was  suspended  after  his 
fall  for  a  century.  Hobbes  while  at  Oxford  (1603-8) 
remained  utterly  ignorant  of  mathematics,  and  was  over  forty 
when  he  first  saw  a  copy  of  Euclid's  Elements,  whereas 
Descartes  was,  like  Pascal  (his  junior  by  twenty-seven  years), 
a  mathematical  discoverer  in  his  early  youth. 

Till  he  was  twenty-three  he  studied  mathematics,  either  ex- 
clusively and  in  seclusion,  or  in  the  intervals  of  military  life. 
It  was  when  he  was  serving  under  Tilly,  at  the  opening  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  was  working  still  at  mathematics 
in  winter-quarters  at  Neuburg,  that  the  crisis  of  his  philosophic 
life  occurred.  He  had  been  comparing  the  certainty  of  his 
mathematical  results  with  the  doubtfulness  of  all  other  know- 
ledge, and  this  brought  him  to  a  state  of  despair.     Tempted 


xxii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  233 

to  resort  anywhere  for  light,  he  turned  to  magic ;  then  to 
inspiration  from  prayer,  vowing  a  pilgrimage  to  Loretto  if  he 
could  find  peace  of  mind.  Then  came  the  day  of  seclusion, 
'enferme'  seul  dans  un  poele'  (read  the  Discours,  Part  II). 
Mathematics,  he  saw,  led  to  conclusions  positively  true. 
Could  he  not,  by  applying  the  method  of  mathematics  to 
knowledge  generally,  get  truth  in  other  subjects  as  well  ? 

After  two  more  years  of  service  and  four  of  travel  (in- 
cluding the  pilgrimage),  studying,  as  he  said,  the  book  of  the 
world,  he  returned  in  1625  to  Paris,  feeling  that,  if  he  had 
not  yet  got  certainty,  at  least  he  had  got  on  to  ihe  right  track. 
There  he  alternately  moved  in  scientific  circles  (no  oiher 
city  had  a  mathematical  circle),  and  disappeared  for  months 
together.  He  would  reappear  ever  riper  in  thought,  and 
finally  created  great  expectations  among  his  friends.  At 
length,  after  his  return  from  studying  siege-appliances  at  the 
siege  of  La  Rochelle,  1628,  he  created  a  sensation  at  the 
house  of  Cardinal  De  Bagn£,  where  he  exposed  the  fallacies 
of  Chandoux,  a  pretender  to  new  science,  by  showing  how 
it  was  possible,  by  using  the  current  arguments  of  the  day, 
to  disprove  anything  claiming  to  be  established  truth,  and  to 
prove  true  anything  apparently  false.  Cardinal  BeVulle 
thereupon  advised  him  to  set  forth  a  constructive  philosophy. 
He  may  at  this  time  have  written  the  Regies  (Regulce  ad 
directioyiem  ingenii),  but  however  that  may  be,  he  now  re- 
moved to  Holland,  where  society  was  quiet  and  liberal,  and 
there  he  lived,  off  and  on,  for  twenty  years  (1629-49), 
changing  his  residence  twenty-four  times,  visiting  England, 
Denmark  and  France,  and  finally  returning  to  France.  During 
that  time  all  his  chief  works  were  written. 

The  publication  of  the  Discours  de  la  Me'lhode  in  1637  at 
once  attracted  friends  and  foes.     The  Medilationes  de  Prima 


234  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

Philosophia  followed  in  1641,  the  Principia  Philosophies  in 
1644.  The  efforts  of  Dutch  theologians  to  get  him 
denounced  and  expelled,  emanating  from  Utrecht  and 
Leyden,  kept  him  perpetually  unsettled,  and  much  con- 
troversial writing  was  drawn  from  him.  He  was  invited  to 
return  to  France,  but  neither  there  was  it  possible  to  live 
quietly,  society  being  unsettled  through  the  Fronde.  Hence 
he  accepted  the  invitation  of  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden, 
a  girl  full  of  intellectual  eagerness  and  his  pupil  already  by 
correspondence,  and  went  to  Stockholm,  1649.  To  have  to 
come  to  the  palace  to  give  instruction  at  five  a.m.  in  the  depth 
of  winter  affected  his  lungs  and  killed  him,  February  11, 
1650. 

The  three  works  last   mentioned  and   Les   Passions   de 

A 

I'Ame,  published  just  after  his  death,  are  those  in  which 
Descartes  is  most  commonly  studied.  But  much  that  we 
know  of  him  is  derived  from  his  Letters  edited  by  Clerselier 
(1665-7).  Other  works,  e.g.  the  Regies,  and  the  Recherche  de 
la  Ve'rite'par  la  Lumiere  naturelle,  were  not  published  till  1701. 
After  his  death  his  MSS.  were  sent  to  Paris,  but  fell  into 
the  Seine,  lay  there  three  days,  and  were  carelessly  dried,  so 
that  there  are  flaws.  The  Recherche,  though  crude  and 
incomplete,  really  gives  the  best  exposition  of  his  system  as 
a  method.  Internal  evidence  shows  it  must  have  been 
written  not  later  than  1629.  The  Method  advocates  the 
importance  of  acquiring  a  certain  way  of  thinking  before 
any  philosophically  valid  results  can  be  arrived  at.  With  it, 
as  a  collection  of  Philosophical  Essays,  he  published  three 
applications  of  his  method : — Dioptrica  (on  refraction,  giving 
also  a  good  account  of  sense),  Meleora,  and  Geomeiria,  the 
last  setting  out  his  special  method  as  got  from,  rather  than 
applied  to,  mathematics.     Modern  analytical  geometry  dates 


xxil.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  235 

from  this  work.  In  the  Method  he  hints  at  a  greater  work 
he  was  keeping  back.  He  apparently  thought  it  best  to 
publish  not  a  philosophy  of  mind,  but  a  doctrine  of  nature, 
which  was  really  the  outcome  of  that  philosophy.  This 
standpoint  marks  him  off  from  Galileo  and  Newton,  who 
investigated  on  lines  of  positive  science  without  having  regard 
to  mind.  Accordingly,  in  1630,  he  set  himself  to  write  the 
treatise  Le  Monde,  ou  Traite  de  ta  Lumiere,  at  the  end  of 
which  he  brings  in  the  philosophic  principles  which  had 
been  all  along  in  his  mind.  This  work,  which  was  finished 
in  1633,  he  was  about  to  publish,  when  Galileo  was  put  on 
his  trial  before  the  Holy  Inquisition  on  account  of  his 
Dialogue  on  the  motion  of  the  earth.  The  Copernican 
theory  had  not  even  then  been  accepted  by  the  Church, 
although  certain  popes  had  been  disposed  in  its  favour. 
Galileo  dared  to  expound  it,  but  only  as  the  hypothesis  that 
best  fitted  the  facts.  Descartes  had  done  the  same  in  Le 
Monde,  but  as  timid  by  nature,  a  sincere  Catholic,  and  above 
all  things  preferring  an  undisturbed  life  to  fame,  he  suppressed 
the  work.  What  was  later  on  published  under  this  title  was 
simply  a  section  of  the  original  work.  The  gist  of  the  latter 
was  actually  given  in  the  Principia,  with  the  modified  view 
that  not  the  earth,  but  the  medium  in  which  the  earth  is, 
moves  round  the  sun  (Cf.  infra  p.  261).  By  1637  his  fears 
and  scruples  had  given  way,  and  in  the  Method,  written  in 
French,  he  refers  to  his  Monde. 

The  Meditations,  '  where  are  demonstrated  the  existence 
of  God  and  the  distinction  of  soul  from  body,'  written 
in  Latin,  and  appealing  to  the  learned,  were  published  in 
1 641-1642,  together  with  the  objections  raised  by  certain 
critics  who  had  read  them  in  MS.  The  most  important  of 
these  were  Hobbes,  Gasscndi  and  Arnauld,  the  two  foimer 


236  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

advancing  Epicureanism  and  Sensationalism  of  a  crude 
type. 

Descartes  after  this  took  courage  and  set  forth  his  whole 
philosophy  in  the  Principia,  in  dogmatic  form  and  not 
analytically  as  in  the  Meditations.  The  Passions,  a  psycho- 
physiological study  of  the  relations  of  body  to  mind,  was 
written  in  1646  for  his  pupil  Princess  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia, 
grand-daughter  of  our  James  I. 

An  important  minor  work,  entitled  Remarks  by  Descartes 
on  a  Certain  Placard  printed  in  the  Netherlands,  was  written 
in  1647  in  opposition  to  the  view  of  his  ardent  admirer 
Regius,  or  Leroy,  a  Utrecht  professor,  who  had,  professedly 
from  the  Cartesian  point  of  view,  transformed  Dualism  into 
something  very  like  later  Materialism,  speaking  of  body  as 
having  two  modes,  thought  and  extension,  and  of  knowledge 
as  due  to  our  sense-experience  of  body  acting  on  body. 
The  Remarks  set  out  more  clearly  than  elsewhere  Descartes' 
view  as  to  the  relation  between  reason,  innate  ideas  and 
experience.  If  elsewhere  he  is  crude,  here  he  is  circumspect, 
agreeing  with  what  Leibniz  said  later  on  of  predispositions 
and  aptitudes. 

The  Recherche  adds  nothing  new,  but  shows  him  as 
having  so  mastered  his  philosophy  that  he  undertakes  to 
make  it  plain  in  dialogue  to  any  intellect. 

To  understand  how  Descartes  came  to  philosophise,  let 
us  begin  with  his  doctrine  of  method  as  set  out  expressly, 
not  in  the  Method,  though  in  the  four  rules  there  given  we 
have  the  sum  and  substance  of  it,  but  in  the  Regies1. 
His   first   point   is   that  philosophy  is  methodic  thinking  as 

1  The  Regies  is  incomplete,  unfinished,  tortuous  and  not  clear ; 
probably  Descartes  was  striving  to  work  his  method  out  fully.  Study 
especially  Rule  XII. 


xxii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  237 

opposed  to  thinking  received  on  authority  or  through  custom, 
and  is  free  from  all  trace  of  doubt.  Erudition,  conversance 
with  opinions  and  facts,  is  not  knowledge.  True  knowledge 
must  have  been  individually  thought  over.  Here  he  opposes 
both  Scholasticism  and  the  Renaissance.  The  philosopher's 
business  is  to  arrive  at  all  knowledge,  for  knowledge  is  one  ; 
until  you  know  all  you  do  not  know  at  all.  This  was  his 
attack  on  specialists.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophers  to 
keep  all  knowledge  together.  This  is  harder  now  than  then, 
yet  there  is  now  more  need  than  ever  to  do  so.  Descartes, 
however,  did  not  by  universal  science  mean  knowledge  of 
everything,  but  that  the  way  of  arriving  at  truth,  the  method 
of  discovery,  is  the  same  for  air  things.  That  is  to  say,  you 
may  be  a  specialist  on  the  condition  that  you  have  had 
a  philosophic  training.  A  specialist  should  know  something 
of  the  way  of  knowing  truth  generally. 

All  knowledge,  he  held,  must  begin  with  what  can  be 
clearly  thought  through  and  through.  True  knowledge  he 
contrasts  with  vague  opinion.  We  are  now  less  inclined 
than  Descartes  to  look  askance  at  the  probable.  Descartes' 
certainty  is  found  to  be  not  so  certain.  There  is  even 
mathematical  knowledge  that  is  only  probable.  Nevertheless 
there  is  a  great  difference  between  what  is  well  known 
and  what  is  badly  known.  The  opposition  between  truth  and 
opinion  does  not  lose  its  value,  even  when  we  are  not  so 
certain  on  some  questions  as  he  was. 

To  continue: — In  order  to  arrive  at  perfect  knowledge, 
at  universal  science,  we  must  start  from  the  simplest  truths, 
from  those  we  can  most  '  clearly '  apprehend,  namely,  from 
intuitions,  and  proceed  by  synthesis  to  more  complex  ideas. 
If  other  relatively  complex  cognitions  become  as  clear 
as    those    intuitions,   we    have   then   arrived   at    truth    by 


238  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

deduction.  But  deduction,  applied  in  any  complex  case,  must 
begin  with  an  enumeration  or  induction  of  all  the  points 
entering  into  the  question  to  be  set  out — of  all  the  conditions 
on  which  the  solution  depends.  Thus  the  deductive  act 
proper  consists  in  passing  progressively  from  condition  to 
conditioned,  and,  if  the  way  is  long  and  the  steps  are  many, 
in  passing  repeatedly  up  and  down  the  same  until  all  the 
elements  are  mastered,  and  the  last  and  most  complex,  with 
all  that  it  depends  on,  stands  out  with  the  same  evidence 
as  the  first.  The  first  conditions  which  are  themselves  not 
conditioned,  and  involve  no  conclusion,  must  have  an  im- 
mediate certainty  and  be  intuitions,  that  is,  directly  known. 
For  intuition,  to  start  with, -and  deduction,  as  the  way,  are 
all  that  the  human  mind  has  to  go  upon  for  certainty.  This 
is  most  plainly  put  in  Regie  V. 

What  we  have  to  know  indirectly  we  can  know  as  certainty, 
as  intuition,  if  we  practise  deduction  in  this  way.  And  the 
method  applies  not  only  to  all  special  questions,  but  also  to 
problems  of  general  knowledge.  Descartes  was  a  methodo- 
logist,  but  he  had  a  philosophy  to  produce  as  well.  To 
do  this  it  seemed  to  him  equally  essential  to  go  back  to 
fundamental  intuitions  having  reference  to  the  fact  of  in- 
telligence ;  indeed  all  knowledge  of  special  questions  comes 
for  him  to  depend  upon  his  philosophical  proof  of  the 
possibility  of  knowledge  generally.  He  insists  in  the  Regies 
on  the  question  of  knowledge  itself  as  preliminary  to  any 
solution  of  special  questions  of  science1.  He  there  strikes 
the  note  of  the  philosopher  and  not  of  the  methodologist. 
We  must  know  what  the  human  mind  can  settle  before  we 
go  in  for  any  special  study.  The  passages  might  have 
been  written  by  Kant  and  may  be  compared  with  Locke's 
1  Cf.  Regies  I  and  VIII. 


xxii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  239 

Introduction  to  his  Essay.  But  of  such  we  find  no  trace 
in  Bacon. 

The  student  may  find  Descartes'  usage  of  the  terms  Deduc- 
tion and  Induction  puzzling.  He  seems  to  waver  in  his 
choice  and  render  satisfactory  explanation  by  means  of  them 
impossible  by  employing  them  interchangeably,  and  in  other 
senses  than  those  of  logic.  According  to  his  view  of  know- 
ledge, there  are  some  things  we  are  sure  of  directly,  or  can 
by  attention  be  brought  to  see  that  we  really  are  sure  of 
directly.  These  intuitions  may  assume  the  form  of  pro- 
positions, and  as  such  they  become  useful  in  philosophy  or 
science.  In  them  our  knowledge  is  reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  and  we  see  between  the  terms  of  such  propositions 
a  necessary  connexion.  For  example,  '  body  must  be  ex- 
tended.' Whether  the  necessity  be  analytic  or  synthetic,  he 
did  not,  like  Kant,  proceed  to  inquire. 

Of  other  things  we  are  not  sure  directly,  but  can  become 
sure  of  by  a  process  of  thought  connecting  them  with  what 
we  are  directly  sure  of.  And  this  process  of  becoming  sure 
is  what  he  calls  deduction,  or  sometimes,  when  the  steps 
are  few,  intuition 1.  But  he  would  never  have  called  a  deduc- 
tion an  intuition  if  it  were  founded  upon  an  induction  or 
enumeration  of  conditions. 

Now  deduction,  he  declared,  was  a  process  that  the 
commonest  minds  can  perform.  All  men  have  direct  in- 
tuition of  some  things,  and  cannot  help  having  it;  the  final 
result  of  a  deduction  is  also  easily  seen ;  thus  logicians  are 
unnecessary.  Why  then  did  he  lay  so  much  stress  on 
method,  and  even  on  preliminary  investigation  ?  And  what 
did  he  mean  by  contemning  the  old  logic,  a  view  shared 
for  that  matter  by  all  the  advancing  minds  of  his  time? 
1  Cf.  Regie  XL 


240  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Descartes  never  completed  his  method.  He  broke  down 
in  the  last  rules  when  applying  them  to  geometry.  His 
slighting  remarks  on  traditional  logic  are  therefore  possibly 
too  hasty.  But  his  opposition  amounts  to  this,  that  he  is 
less  concerned  about  proof  or  exposition  than  he  is  about 
discovery.  He  wants  not  so  much  to  set  out  what  was 
already  got  as  to  find  how  to  arrive  at  the  unknown  from  the 
known.  Yet  his  view  was  not  that  of  J.  S.  Mill  on  real 
inference.  Mill  (in  his  Logic)  was  concerned  about  a  theory 
of  proof,  of  proof  in  general  statements  going  beyond  actual 
observation,  and  where  formal  proof  was  therefore  impossible. 
Descartes  wanted  a  theory  of  discovery.  This  is  implied  in 
his  attempt,  with  the  help  of  algebra,  to  systematise  and 
extend  the  method  of  mathematical  analysis,  which  was 
a  method  of  actual  discovery  not  unrelated  to  proof,  yet 
different  from  the  proving  what  has  already  been  discovered  *, 
Nevertheless,  as  we  have  seen,  while  decrying  the  old  logic, 
he  created  difficulties  by  misusing  terms  borrowed  therefrom. 
Instead  of  deduction  and  induction  he  ought  to  have  used 
analysis  and  synthesis.  He  could  then  have  used  the 
former  terms  as  well.  For  analysis  assumes  the  form 
sometimes  of  induction,  sometimes  of  deduction.  Right 
procedure  is  analysis  followed  up  by  synthesis.  There  is  no 
opposition  between  proof  and  discovery ;  they  are  comple- 
mentary one  of  the  other,  and  are  both  different  aspects 
of  the  same  process  of  knowing.  Mark  Descartes  himself 
in  Rule  XII,  where  he  says  that  knowledge  is  simple  or 
composite,  and  considers  the  ways  of  knowing  the  com- 
posite through  the  example  of  the  magnet.  Some  men  set 
about  investigating  this  with  no  method,  turning  away  from 
the  evident  and  looking  to  find  something  new  in  it  by 
1  Vide  my  article  '  Analysis,'  Encycl.  Brit. 


xxii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  241 

chance.  The  scientific  man,  who  knows  the  difference 
between  the  simple  and  the  complex,  musters  all  his  particular 
observations  of  the  magnet,  and  is  thence  able  to  deduce  the 
nature  of  its  composition,  as  far  as  experience  can  furnish 
the  requisite  data.  This  departs  little  from  the  best  any 
man  has  ever  said  on  the  process  of  discovery.  Mill  strays 
into  discovery  from  proof.  Jevons  divides  the  two.  Never- 
theless Descartes  so  mixes  up  his  sound  idea  of  discovery 
with  the  terms  of  proof  that  confusion  results. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  up  to  Rule  XII  Descartes 
has  been  setting  out  general  considerations  on  the  problem 
of  method.  In  XII  itself  he  gives  his  theory  of  knowledge 
in  a  view  of  the  knowing  faculty,  showing  the  relation  of 
the  intellect  to  sense,  imagination  and  memory.  Here  is 
his  first  really  philosophic  point.  We  have  to  distinguish 
between  ourselves  as  knowing  and  things  known.  The 
latter  he  deals  with  in  the  light  of  what  we  know  of  the 
knowing  faculty.  They  are  either  simple  or  complex.  The 
former  he  has  disposed  of  already ;  we  know  them  by  in- 
tuition ;  composites  we  know  by  deduction.  Into  the  latter 
he  now  goes  more  fully,  dealing  with  them  as  Questions 
(a)  perfectly  comprehended ;  {b)  imperfectly  comprehended. 
(a)  are  questions  of  mathematics.  Concerning  (b)  the  twelve 
rules  he  was  about  to  give  are  not  given,  but  in  the  Prin- 
cipia  we  find  the  results  of  rules  followed  consciously  or 
unconsciously. 

Before  leaving  the  Method  let  us  glance  at  Bacon, 
Descartes'  great  predecessor  in  respect  of  method.  We  may 
easily  draw  a  parallel  between  them.  Both  were  men  of 
their  time,  dissatisfied  with  the  old  ways;  both  were  con- 
cerned about  real  knowledge  and  looked  to  method  to  bring 
it  about.    But  here  the  parallel  ceases.     Bacon's  point  of  view 

R 


242  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

was  objective.  He  always  dealt  with  the  external  world  as  we 
find  it  in  common  life,  with  the  ordinary  idea  of  experience. 
He  did  not  begin  with  a  theory  of  knowledge  as  a  ground 
for  his  method.  He  never  philosophically  inquired  what  is 
the  relation  of  experience  to  knowledge.  Yet  it  is  remarkable 
how,  from  his  unphilosophic  point  of  view,  Bacon  does  by 
induction  virtually  aim  at  explaining  experience  and  comes 
round  to  Descartes'  results.  So  far  as  nature  is  concerned, 
Descartes,  no  less  than  Bacon,  regards  extension  and  motion 
as  the  fundamentals  upon  which  we  can  explain  all  our 
experience  of  the  physical  world.  Bacon  says  constantly  that, 
having  got  experience  of  a  certain  kind,  we  must  get  other., 
similar  experiences,  mass  them  together,  and  so  hope  to 
find  the  '  forms'  of  things,  or  what  we  can  make  out  by  com- 
parison of  phenomena.  Ultimately  '  form '  comes  to  be  indis- 
tinguishable from  '  sensible  appearances '  expressed  in  terms 
of  motion.     He  shows,  for  example,  that  heat  is  motion. 

But  permanent  differences  remain.  Descartes  regarded 
all  with  a  view  to  a  general  theory  of  knowledge.  He 
proposed  to  deal  with  the  whole  realm  of  physical  science 
in  a  certain  definite  and  progressive  way.  Bacon  had  no 
idea  of  a  general  science  except  as  a  result  of  all  special 
effort.  Descartes  gets  his  general  principles  by  way  of 
deduction,  Bacon,  by  induction.  Yet  Descartes  by  no 
means  makes  light  of  experience  and  of  experiment,  but 
made  a  place  for  it  in  his  scheme  of  knowledge.  He  says, 
for  instance,  that  he  could  not  proceed  to  medic'ne  for  want 
of  experience  and  experiment.  And  in  a  letter  he  said  that 
Bacon  had  so  thoroughly  treated  of  experimental  knowledge 
in  his  Novum  Organon  that  it  was  practically  useless  for 
any  one  to  try  to  go  ahead  of  him.  But  Bacon  seemed  to 
think  that  in  a  specific  solution  he  had  got  all  that  the  mind 


xxii.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  243 

wants.  Descartes  thought  that,  having  established  experi- 
mentally, we  could  give  a  rational  explanation  deductively — 
which  is  the  ideal  of  science. 

Descartes  prematurely  and  arbitrarily  got  deductions  from 
general  principles,  and  thus  lost  the  full  sense  of  contact 
with  fact  that  exists  in  the  properly  scientific  man.  He 
attached  more  value  to  internal  coherence  and  consistency 
than  to  the  consistency  of  results  with  fact.  He  had  not  the 
sense  of  the  duty  of  verification,  which  is  now  held  as  so 
important.  This  has  come  to  us  rather  upon  the  line  of 
Bacon's  injunctions  than  of  Descartes'  practice. 


LECTURE   XXIII. 

ON    THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    DESCARTES. 

Reading. — The  Meditations,  i-v.     (Simon,  Gamier,  or  Veitch.) 

It  will  not  be  possible  here  to  treat  of  Descartes'  philosophy 
adequately  in  a  general  explication  \  I  shall  therefore  only 
single  out  special  difficulties,  and  bring  to  bear  upon  them* 
passages  from  other  of  Descartes'  works  than  those  pre- 
scribed for  students'  reading. 

We  have  seen,  in  connexion  with  his  Method,  that  if  he 
is  to  have  a  philosophy,  he  needs  an  immediate  certainty  as 
a  starting-point  for  all  knowledge.  In  getting  this  for  philo- 
sophy, he  believed  himself  to  have  got  a  foundation  for  all 
physical  science.  The  characteristic  note  of  modern  philo- 
sophy, the  '  critical '  point  of  view  which  has  been  accepted 
since  Kant,  is  that  before  there  can  be  anything  worth  calling 
science  (in  general),  and  especially  any  knowledge  of  things 
as  they  really  are,  there  must  be  a  theory  of  knowing — a 
discovery  of  what  we  can  know  and  how  we  can  know  it, 
and  of  what  we  can  not  know.  This,  which  became  explicit 
in  Kant,  was  anticipated  implicitly  in  Locke.  Descartes 
anticipated  both.  Kant  arrived  at  his  position  by  criticism  ; 
the  English  school  tried  to  set  it  out  by  way  of  psychology ; 
the  same  conception  governs  both,  and  it  is  at  the  bottom 
of  Descartes'  procedure. 

1  His  philosophy    is    given    in    outline   in    Lect.    VII ;    see  also 
Lect.  XI -Ed. 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  245 

We  know  that  he  found  the  certainty  he  sought  in  the  in- 
tuition Cogito  ergo  sum,  and  on  it  he  sought  to  build  up  his 
theory.  Does  he  build  it  up  on  that  one  intuition  ?  He  really 
needed  one  more  certainty,  as  we  shall  see. 

Read  how  he  arrived  at  his  Cogito  in  the  first  Medita- 
tion : — dubilandtim  est  de  omnibus.  The  omnibus  comes  to  be 
everything  he  had  got  from  authority  and  tradition,  all  the 
opinions  he  had  grown  up  with.  In  common  life  we  feel 
sure  on  the  testimony  of  sense.  But  sense  is  often  illusion 
and  never  are  we  sure  that  it  is  not.  We  have  not  even 
a  criterion  to  distinguish  between  dreaming  and  waking 
(this  he  modifies  later  on).  Our  very  mathematical  cer- 
tainties may  not  represent  reality.  For  our  fundamental 
philosophic  certainty  we  must  get  below  all  these. 

Here  note  first  that  Descartes  gives  way  to  doubt,  not  for 
the  pleasure  of  doubting,  but  only  as  a  means  to  an  end — 
only  for  the  sake  of  getting  to  know.  Compare  his  proviso 
in  the  Method  (Parts  II,  III).  He  is  not  a  sceptic.  He 
has  no  wish  to  let  practical  life  be  affected  by  philosophic 
doubt.  He  simply  means,  '  You  are  not  to  be  satisfied  with 
things  simply  because  they  are  in  your  mind.'  All  philo- 
sophers have  meant  as  much,  even  if  they  have  not  expressed 
it  as  a  principle.  It  is  nothing  more  than  putting  one's  self 
at  the  subjective  point  of  view.  All  philosophers  not  only 
do  so,  but  must  do  so.  They  have  to  interpret  the  things 
of  experience  in  this  new  subjective  light,  and  this  involves 
doubting  where  there  had  hitherto  been  trusting.  People 
would  say,  that  pillar  is  white,  and  act  upon  this  belief; 
physical  science  too  would  proceed  upon  it.  But  psycho- 
logical analysis  resolves  this  quality  of  the  pillar  into  some- 
thing less  inherent  than  had  seemed  apparent. 

Descartes  then  doubted  in  order  to  demonstrate.     And,  as 


246  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

Leibniz  wrote  to  Bernoulli,  there  is  much  difference  between 
throwing  doubt  upon  anything  and  seeking  an  ultimate  de- 
monstration of  it.  Nevertheless,  he  added,  Descartes  sinned 
doubly,  first  by  doubting  too  much,  then  by  getting  away 
too  easily  from  his  doubts  *.  As  for  his  doubting  too  much, 
it  were  more  just  to  say,  he  doubted  in  too  theatrical  a  way. 
It  was  a  fault  of  manner ;  he  lacked  simplicity.  Nevertheless 
everyone  in  passing  over  to  the  subjective  point  of  view  may, 
possibly  must,  undergo  a  struggle ;  and  Descartes  probably 
had  real  and  great  labour  in  getting  away  from  the  common 
conception  of  knowledge. 

Now  we  have  already  seen  how,  when  he  had  got  to  his, 
cogito,  or  rather  his  dubito,  he  translated  it,  in  the  second 
Meditation,  into  Ego  sum  res  cogilans — a  thing  that  thinks,  a 
mind,  understanding,  reason — that  and  nothing  but  that.  All 
this,  then,  is  implicit  in  the  Cogito.  From  I  think,  and  from 
nothing  else,  it  follows  that  /  am,  that  I  am  a  mind.  I  am 
at  bottom  nothing  but  a  thinking  being,  however  I  may  come 
to  see  myself  afterwards 2.  Note  this  and  you  will  understand 
the  objections  to  it.  These  were  raised  by  critics  to  whom 
Descartes  showed  his  Meditations  in  MS.  Garnier's  edition 
abridges  them,  missing  many  points  in  them.  They  are 
threefold  : — 

1.  In  Cogito  ergo  sum,  the  ergo  introduces  an  inference, 
and  thus  implies  a  major  premise —  Whatever  thinks,  is.  But 
this  is  a  generalisation,  not  an  intuition  (Objection  II). 
Descartes'  reply  (feebly  abridged  in  Gamier)  is  that,  in  spite 
of  the  ergo,  there  is  no  inference,  but  a  simple  act  of  mental 
inspection.  His  meaning  is  '  I  am  in  that  I  think.'  '  My 
thinking  implies  my  existence '  is  an  intuition.     More  is  the 

1  Cf.  Erdmann,  op.  cit.  p.  81. 

*  Compare  Meditation  II,  with  the  last  few  pages  of  the  Recherche. 


xxiii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  247 

pity  then  that  ergo,  indicating  neither  mediate  nor  immediate 
inference,  should  be  there  at  all.  In  his  reply  to  Hobbes, 
Descartes  comes  once  upon  the  contrapositive : — If  I  were 
not  I  could  not  think.  But  enough  of  the  ergo.  The  Cogito 
may  be  an  intuition  such  as  he  wanted,  but  it  is  not  the  only 
one  he  uses. 

2.  To  Hobbes's  objections  Descartes  attached  least  im- 
portance. Hobbes,  who  was  then  (1640)  fifty  years  old 
and  had  formed  definite  philosophic  notions  of  his  own, 
treated  Descartes  magisterially,  and  his  criticisms  are  some- 
times, though  not  always,  trivial.  He  was  unable  to  get  at 
Descartes'  point  of  view.  Descartes  replied : — To  object  that 
the  inference  'I  am,' or  'I  am  a  thinking  thing,' from  'I 
think,'  is  as  weak  as  to  argue  that  because  '  I  am  walking,' 
therefore  'I  am  a  walk,'  is  irrelevant.  A  walk  is  never 
taken  to  mean  anything  but  the  action,  while  thought  is 
used  indifferently  for  the  action,  for  the  faculty  and  for  that 
in  which  the  faculty  resides.  Thought  is  like  no  other  process 
or  thing,  and  to  discern  this  is  the  first  step  in  philosophy. 
Thought  then  may = thinking  thing  ;  and  hereupon  Descartes 
goes  on  to  make  a  statement  about  substance,  which  is  at 
variance  with  what  he  says  elsewhere  (infra,  p.  256),  namely, 
that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  substance  except  through  its 
manifestations.  As  these  are  different,  so  do  we  infer  different 
substance.  Thinking,  e.  g.  is  different  from  extension ;  there- 
fore thinking  substance  is  different  from  extended  substance. 
Substance — what  it  is  in  itself-  was  puzzling  Descartes  as  it 
was  to  puzzle  Locke. 

3.  Gassendi  had  no  objection  to  the  Cogilo,  but  held  that 
•  sum '  might  be  inferred  as  well  from  ambulo  or  any  other 
action.  No,  rejoined  Descartes, '  you  can  only  say  "  you  are," 
because  you  are  conscious  that  you  walk,  that  is,  because  you 


248  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

think;'  thus  reaffirming  the  potency  for  philosophy  of  the 
subjective  point  of  view.  This  shows  how  much  Gassendi 
with  his  revived  Epicureanism  and  Democritean  Atomism 
stood  outside  philosophic  thought.  He  is  to  Descartes 
what  Democritus  was  to  Socrates  and  Plato.  Hobbes  took 
the  objective  point  of  view  as  well  as  his  friend  Gassendi, 
but  he  had  also  a  keen  philosophic  appreciation  which  places 
him  nearer  to  modern  thought.     We  now  pass  on. 

The  existence  of  self  as  a  thinking  being  Descartes  now 
regards  as  certain  because,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  doubts, 
he  apprehends  with  perfect  clearness  that  this  is  so.  '  I 
know  distinctly  that  I  am,  and  distinctly  what  I  am :  '• 
— a  thinkirg  being — and  there  is  nothing  else  that  I  dis- 
tinctly apprehend  about  myself.  /  cannot  get  below  thought. 
Now  if  I  can  as  clearly  apprehend  anything  else,  this 
loo  must  be  true.  Else  how  should  the  cogito  be  true? 
Here  he  lays  down  his  criterion  of  truth — Everything  must 
be  true  which  I  perceive  with  perfect  clearness  and  dis- 
tinctness. Thought,  when  perfectly  clear,  portends  reality. 
Why  ?  Because  this  is  the  only  ground  that  can  be  given  in 
regard  to  self  as  a  thinking  being.  Thus  he  has  got  his 
first  certainty  and  his  criterion. 

But  it  is  a  criterion  which  takes  no  account  of  the  relative 
character  of  anything  that  can  be  called  truth  or  true  know- 
ledge. It  fixes  some  things  as  final  truths,  which  the  mind 
rests  in  because  they  do  not  happen  to  have  been  resolved 
into  higher  or  more  general  truths.  And  it  denies  that  other 
things  are  in  any  sense  truths,  and  that  the  mind  for  any 
purpose  dare  rest  in  them,  because — they  do  happen  to  have 
been  so  resolved.  For  instance,  the  resolution  of  sense  into 
an  effect  (in  mind)  of  mechanical  stimulation  may  be  an 
important   truth,  but   neither   is   that  all  that   may  be  said 


xxiii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  249 

scientifically  or  philosophically  about  sense,  nor,  when  nothing 
of  the  kind  is  said,  does  sense  cease  to  be  some  truth  and 
become  a  mere  source  of  error  and  deception. 

His  next  step  is  variously  stated.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
considerations  that  seem  to  press  on  his  mind  at  this  stage. 
First,  is  there  a  certainty  beyond  self?  Next,  what  are  the 
circumstances  under  which  his  criterion,  even  when  applied 
to  self,  can  or  cannot  hold  ?  He  is  not  prepared  to  apply  it 
straightway.  He  does  discover  another  certainty  which 
supplies  the  ground  for  the  criterion  itself,  and  this  is  the 
existence  of  God.  Only  as  he  has  this  is  he  sure  about  his 
criterion,  and  even  about  himself. 

This  seemed  tortuous  to  objectors;  nor  did  Descartes 
himself  fail  to  see  their  point.  In  fact  he  gets  to  this 
second  certainty,  not  from  the  first  certainty  (concerning 
self)  by  way  of  his  criterion,  or  if  from  self  then  by 
way  not  of  the  criterion,  but  of  a  different  principle — 
that  of  Causality,  which  for  him  assumed  these  forms : — 
Nothing  can  come  from  nothing ;  everything  must  have 
a  cause ;  the  more  perfect  cannot  be  a  consequent  of 
the  less  perfect;  the  cause  must  contain  at  least  as  much 
reality  as  the  effect.  If  it  contain  more,  it  is  a  causa  emi- 
nenter,  just  as  the  artist  is  more  than  his  work  ;  if  it  contain 
only  as  much,  he  called  it  causa  fonnaliter  \  illustrating  it 
by  a  die  or  seal  and  its  imprint. 

1  The  word  '  formal '  is  in  Descartes  more  obscure  than  the  simpler 
term  eminenter — standing  out.  It  is  really  derived  from  the  Aristotelian 
doctrine  of  action.  Action  with  Aristotle  always  means  'forming'; 
hence  Descartes  takes  formal  to  mean  '  wrought  by,'  and  causa  for- 
maliter,  a  working  cause.  But  while  this  confuses  the  Aristotelian 
formal  and  efficient  causes,  Descartes  induces  further  confusion  by 
making  formal  reality  synonymous  with  actual  reality,  and  yet 
opposing  it  to  what  he  calls  objective  reality  ^Veitch  has  good  notes 


250  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

This  second  principle,  that  of  Causality,  is  so  distinctly 
the  means  of  his  advancing  in  his  system  beyond  self,  that  it 
has  been  well  named  his  '  Archimedean  fulcrum.'  Spinoza 
saw  as  much  when,  in  an  early  work,  he  set  out  an 
exposition  of  Descartes'  philosophy  in  mathematical  form. 
He  said  that  unless  this  principle  is  assumed,  away  goes  the 
Cogito.  If  out  of  nothing  something  can  come,  then  I  who 
think  do  not  therefore  necessarily  exist.  Descartes'  own 
chosen  principle  of  self-certainty  is  barren  in  his  system 
compared  with  the  principle  of  causality.  The  criterion 
of  clearness  and  distinctness  which  he  uses  to  establish  his 
1  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit,'  is  itself  not  established  beyond  objection 
till  God  is  proved  to  exist  from  that  very  '  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit.' 

Ideas  therefore,  i.  e.  anything  of  which  we  are  conscious, 
must  like  everything  else  have  a  cause.  Now  can  any  of  the 
three  possible  kinds  of  ideas,  innate,  adventitious  or  fictitious, 
of  which  I  am  conscious,  but  the  origin  of  which  I  do  not 
know,  carry  me  with  the  help  of  causality,  beyond,  out 
of,  myself?  'Adventitious'  ideas  seem  to  come  from  external 
objects — can  they  ? 

All  ideas  are  either  of  substances  or  modes  of  substance. 
The  latter  can  be  left  aside  as  having  less  objective  reality, 
i.  e.  as  being  less  in  thought  than  substances.  Substances  are 
fivefold : — bodies  inanimate,  animals,  men,  angels,  God. 
These  are  all  he  has  ever  thought  of.  The  second,  third, 
and  fourth  he  can  drop  out ;  for  in  having  a  certainly  as  to 
himself  he  can   infer  his  equals,  his    inferiors,  and  beings 

on  this  point).  It  should  however  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  uses 
'  objective '  in  the  Scholastic  sense.  Subjective  and  objective  have 
come  to  be  used  in  precisely  the  opposite  signification  they  bore  for 
the  Schoolmen.  For  Descartes  too  the  objective  meant  what  exists  as 
thought  o/,  mental  representation.  Subjective,  on  the  other  hand, 
referred  to  what  was  placed  under  in  the  way  of  substantial  existence. 


xxiil]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  251 

relatively  superior  to  himself.  As  to  bodies,  there  is  nothing 
more  in  them  than  mind  can  account  for.  He  can  think  of 
them,  and  think  of  them  as  sensibly  perceived.  A  sensible 
perception  is  distinguished  from  other  thoughts  as  being 
less  clear,  hence  bodies  cannot  have  more  reality  than 
mind.  And — note  this  ! — all  that  is  really  known  of  body 
is  simply  thought,  is  known  only  as  he  thinks,  not  as  he 
is  sensitive.  That  the  body  yonder  is  wax  he  knows  only 
by  thinking  about  it. 

Now  is  it  the  same  with  the  remaining  substance,  God  ? 
Here  he  finds  a  great  difference,  calling  for  special  arguments. 
Read  Meditations  III and  V,  not  IV. 

He  judges  that  he  can  explain  body  from  himself;  he  can 
be  the  cause,  even  '  eminently '  the  cause  of  his  idea  of  body. 
But  of  God  he  can  have  no  idea  from  himself.  He  must  find 
proofs  of  God's  existence  to  make  sure  of  the  clearness  of 
his  thought.  Grouping  together  all  that  is  scattered  through 
Descartes'  works  on  this  subject,  we  get  as  irreducible 
result  three  separate  proofs  put  forward : — (1)  The  onto- 
logical,  metaphysical,  or  a  priori  proof,  viz.  the  existence  of 
God  is  to  be  understood  as  given  necessarily  in  the  idea  of 
God.  (2)  The  having  in  my  mind  the  idea  of  an  infinite 
Being  of  which  there  is  nothing  in  the  finite  nature  of  my  mind 
to  be  the  cause.  (3)  The  fact  of  my  existing  (not  thinking), 
and  existing  as  imperfect.  This  can  only  be  exp'ained 
ultimately  by  the  existence  of  God  as  a  perfect  Being.  (2)  and 
(3)  may  be  called  a  posteriori  proofs,  or,  according  to  Kuno 
Fischer,  anthropological,  being  founded  on  a  consideration 
not  of  the  idea  of  God,  but  of  the  nature  of  man. 

Now  Descartes  finds  in  the  two  last  proofs  sufficient 
ground  to  work  on  in  the  Meditations,  since  he  does  not 
bring   in  the  first  in  Book  III,  where   he  gets  to  his  real 


252  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

certainty,  but  only  in  Book  V.  Here  then  it  is  secondary. 
But  in  the  more  dogmatic  Principia  it  is  put  first.  Again, 
in  the  second  response  to  the  objections  (end  of  Meditations), 
where  he  sets  out  his  system  in  geometrical  form — not  that 
he  held  with  this  procedure,  but  merely  to  show,  if  he  had 
chosen  to  do  so,  how  he  would  have  done  it — he  begins  with 
proof  (1).  And  this  in  demonstration  is  right,  just  as  Euclid 
set  out  at  first  that  which  he  arrived  at  last  \ 

In  proof  (2)  he  applies  the  principle  of  causality  to  the 
ideas  of  which  we  are  conscious.  It  is  a  positive  idea — this 
of  an  infinite  Being — not  the  result  of  abstraction,  which  would 
give  us  the  Indefinite,  not  the  Infinite.  It  is  there,  and,, 
causality  being  true  in  the  light  of  nature2,  it  must  be 
caused  by  a  real  infinite  original.  The  idea  of  it  is  the  mark 
of  the  artificer,  and  is  Descartes'  '  ideal '  innate  idea. 

With  regard  to  proof  (1),  compare  the  statement  of  it  in 
the  Principia  (§  xiv.)  with  that  in  Med.  V  (Veitch,  p.  148). 
The  absolutely  perfect  must  exist,  since  existence  is  a 
perfection.  To  this  in  the  Principia  is  added  that  God's 
existence  is  not  only  possible  but  absolutely  necessary  and 
eternal.  Wherefore  these  additions  ?  To  make  his  view  more 
explicit,  because  he  had  been  charged  with  merely  dishing  up 
a  mediaeval  argument  which  had  been  repudiated  by  Aquinas, 
on  the  ground  that  we  have  no  ii0ht  to  infer  from  essence 
to  existence.  Descartes  pointed  out  his  own  opinion  as 
divergent  from  this  in  Objection  I.  The  argument  is  as  old 
as  Anselm,  in  whose  time  little  of  Aristotle  was  known  and 
the  schools  were  thoroughly  Platonic.     It  ran  thus: — God 

1  Veitch  gives  thi ,  exposition  in  an  Appendix. 

2  Descartes  uses  'light  of  nature'  (1)  in  a  depreciating  sense,  as 
what  is  common  everyday  experience,  (a)  as  the  whole  collection  of 
fundamental  intuitions  in  any  human  mind. 


xxiii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  253 

is  that  than  which  nothing  greater  can  be  thought.  But  to 
be  in  intellect  and  in  reality  is  greater  than  to  be  in  intellect 
only ;  therefore  God  cannot  be  thought  not  to  be.  Some 
Schoolmen,  and  especially  Aqu'nas,  saw  the  error  of  making 
an  inference  from  a  definition.  A  definition  is  hypothetical. 
Reality  must  either  be  postulated  or  proved  otherwise.  An- 
selm's  argument  should  properly  have  been  '^God  exists, 
He  exists  not  only  in  intellect,  but  also  in  reality.'  Kant, 
in  the  Pure  Reason,  shows  the  insufficiency  of  the  ontological 
proof,  as  he  called  it.  The  proof,  he  said,  supposes  real 
existence  to  be  an  attribute  which  enters  into  a  concept 
wiih  other  attributes,  in  which  case  the  comprehension 
of  a  notion  should  be  changed  according  as  existence  is 
or  is  not  supposed.  But  one  hundred  real  dollars  in  thought 
do  not  contain  an  atom  more  than  one  hundred  possible 
dollars.  Existence  does  not  enter  analytically  into  the 
conception  of  a  thing.  But  Descartes  did  draw  a  dis- 
tinction in  his  answer  to  Caterus,  namely,  between  notions. 
In  some,  e.  g.  triangles,  centaurs,  essence  does  not  involve 
existence,  even  though  he  can  picture  them  most  clearly. 
The  notion  of  God  however  does  include  existence,  and 
not  only  possible  but  also  necessary  existence.  And  accord- 
ingly in  the  second  edition  of  the  Meditations  he  added  the 
word  necessary.  Kant,  by  implication,  does  not  allow  for 
this  distinction,  in  which  lies  the  whole  force  of  Descartes' 
position.  Whenever  Descartes  is  pushed  into  a  corner 
concerning  this  ontological  proof,  he  always  escapes  on  his 
fundamental  argument  that  the  idea  (of  God's  existence) 
is  one  not  so  much  of  necessary  existence  as  of  necessary 
existence  originally  in  me.  Causality  is  for  him  at  the 
bottom,  and  not  the  ontological  proof,  which  usually  fails  to 
distinguish  this  between  real  existence  and  the  conception 


254  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

of  possible  exis!ence.  '/  am  imperfect,  and  /  have  this 
idea  of  God  or  of  perfection.'  This  of  course  is  liable  to  the 
objection — ' You  have  this  idea  of  God;  /  have  none.' 
And  since  Descartes'  day  speculation  has  (as  with  Kant) 
given  place  to  moral  argument,  or  the  consciousness  of 
1  moral  sense.'  Descartes  himself  suggests  that  his  arguments 
have  at  least  a  cumulative  value. 

At  all  events  he  has  got  from  doubt  to  certainty  and 
a  ground  of  universal  knowledge.  We  have  now  to  see 
what  he  means  by  truth  and  what  is  his  doctrine  of  error. 
Notice  first  the  two  positions  in  the  Principia,  Book  I. 
In  §  30  the  argument  may  be  summarised  thus : — God  exists, 
and  because  He  alone  is  perfect,  He  alone  is  perfectly  inde- 
pendent ;  therefore  all  things  depend  upon  Him,  and  therefore 
my  ideas  depend  upon  Him.  My  ideas  must  therefore  be 
true  because  He  is  true.  Again,  the  faculty  of  knowing  which 
He  has  given  us  never  apprehends  any  object  which  is  not 
true  as  far  as  it  apprehends  it,  that  is  to  say,  as  far  as  it 
knows  clearly  and  distinctly. 

But  in  §  xiii  and  in  Meditation  V,  p.  148,  the  criterion 
is  taken  as  certain  in  itself.  Where  it  is  directly  applied 
Descartes  does  not  doubt  its  power.  But  he  admits  there 
are  cases  where  we  say  that  we  know,  although  it  is  by  no 
means  present  to  us  that  we  clearly  see  what  we  say  that  we 
know ;  e.  g.  in  the  steps  of  a  demonstration  in  Euclid,  where 
we  have  possibly  forgotten  the  first  steps,  forgotten,  i.  e.  what 
we  applied  the  criterion  to,  though  we  recollect  we  did  apply  it. 
God  in  this  case  guarantees  the  validity  of  our  memory 
rather  than  that  of  the  criterion  itself.  But  if  we  know  by 
the  help  of  a  perfect  Being,  how  do  we  come  to  err  ? 

Now  turn  to  Med.  IV.  Error,  he  finds,  is  not  in  percep- 
tion, but  in  judgment,  where,  that  is,  we  turn  what  we  perceive 


xxiii.]     Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  255 

into  an  objective  predicate1.  But  we  may  judge  and  yet 
withhold  assent.  When  we  do  assent  (or  refuse),  we  exercise 
will  in  the  sense  of  self-determination.  Now  the  under- 
standing is  from  God  and  errs  not,  nor  does  self-determination, 
by  the  power  of  which  we  come  nearest  to  God.  But  the 
understanding  is  limited,  the  will  is  not.  And  whenever  the 
will  by  its  liberty  of  indifference  either  affirms  or  denies 
beyond  the  limit  of  the  understanding's  insight,  then  there  is 
error,  even  if  the  judgment  is  a  right  one ;  and  doubly  so,  if  it 
is  wrong.  While  if  the  will  uses  its  liberty  of  indifference  so 
as  not  to  judge  at  all,  we  cannot  err.  That  the  will  can  refrain 
from  judging  renders  God  not  chargeable  for  our  errors. 

If  then  we  know  self,  God,  and  how  to  avoid  error,  what 
do  we  know  beside,  and  how  ?  This  brings  Descartes  to  the 
subject  of  bodies,  or  the  external  world.  Read  Med.  VI. 
The  existence  of  bodies  cannot  be  concluded  from  the 
fact  that  we  can  imagine  them.  Imagination  is  not  pure 
intellection  or  thought,  as  he  explains  later,  but  is  a  mode 
of  our  subjective  life  determined  by  the  relation  of  mind  to 
body.  Being  inferior  to  thought  it  may  proceed  from  the 
thinking  being. 

Nor  can  the  existence  of  bodies  be  proved  from  sensations. 
It  is  natural  in  us  to  refer  the  latter  to  outside  bodies, 
but  sensations  themselves  are  no  guarantee,  as  we  know  by 
the  case,  e.  g.  of  an  amputated  arm,  where  some  sensations 
are  still  referred  to  the  lost  limb,  and  by  sensations  affecting 
us  in  dreams,  as  in  waking.  Descartes'  arguments  here 
are  very  modern — but  so  also  are  Plato's  in  the  Thecetetus. 

But  my  sensations  of  objects  must  have  a  cause.     I  am  not 

1  Compare  Kant's  distinction  between  judgments  of  perception 
(eg  if  the  sun  shines  the  stone  is  warm)  and  judgments  of  experience 
(the  sun  warms  the  stone). 


256  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

the  cause.  They  result  neither  from  my  thought  nor  from 
my  will.  They  must  then  be  due  to  God  as  their  cause 
eminenter,  or  conceivably  to  bodies  as  their  cause  for inaliter. 
Which  ?    To  bodies,  else  I  am  perpetually  deceived. 

Note  the  difference  between  Descartes  and  Berkeley.  The 
latter  leaves  off  with  the  view  that  God  is  the  only  certainty, 
extirpating  matter  except  as  an  idea  coming  from  God. 
Descartes  retained  matter  to  exclude  the  charge  of  deception 
on  the  part  of  God  \ 

To  understand  how  speculative  philosophy  took  the  turn 
it  did  after  Descartes,  compare  his  dogmatic  statements  in  the 
Principia  (Part  II)  on  matter,  viz.  bodies  exist  apart  from 
mind  as  the  real  cause  of  our  perception,  and  the  mind 
perceives  them  as  they  are,  in  as  far  as  it  has  clear  and 
distinct  knowledge.  Mind,  then,  and  body  are  alike  sub- 
stances, a  substance  being  a  thing  that  exists  in  such  a  way 
that  it  has  no  need  but  of  itself  for  its  existence.  This  is 
true  of  each  substance  with  reference  to  other  substances, 
yet  obviously  the  determination  cannot  strictly  hold  for  any 
finite  mind  or  body,  since  all  depend  upon  God.  God 
therefore  is  the  only  true  substance.  Substance  cannot  be 
said  univocally  of  God  and  of  anything  created.  Here  he 
seems  to  imply  that  we  have  immediate  knowledge  of 
substance,  although  he  did  not  allow  this  in  answering 
Hobbes.  Mind  and  body,  he  had  said,  as  substances 
essentially  different  and  independent,  were  knowable  only  by 
their  attributes,  each  having  one  principal  attribute  expressing 
its  nature.  Of  these  indefeasible  attributes — thought,  extension 
— all  those  modifications  on  the  ground  of  which  we  speak 

1  In  Hamilton's  language  he  is  a  Hypothetical  Realist,  or,  if  an 
Idealist,  then  a  Cosmothetic  Idealist.  However  he  stiips  bodies  of 
all  secondary  qualities. 


xxiii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosopny.  257 

of  substances  having  different  qualities  (not  attributes)  are 
by  him  called  modes ;  such  are  figure  (a  mode  of  extension), 
imagination,  feeling,  willing  (modes  of  thought)  l.  Modes 
are  not  found  in  Infinite  Substance,  for  that  is  unchangeable. 

In  the  Principia  he  proceeds  to  distinguish  between 
attributes  as  essential  and  modes  as  accidental.  Other 
qualities  ascribed  by  us  to  bodies  are  really  modes  of  our 
thought,  as  Number,  and  especially  Time,  also  the  five 
•  universals '  or  predicables  2.  Descartes  was,  in  fact,  no 
Realist  in  the  old  sense,  but  a  Conceptualist — or  a  Nomi- 
nalist as  opposed  not  to  Conceptualism,  but  to  Realism.  He 
comes  here  nearer  to  Kant.  He  held,  it  is  true,  that  space 
was  a  mode  of  extension,  something  having  objective  reality, 
but  lime  was  a  mode  of  thought — Kant  would  have  said,  of 
intuition,  meaning  of  perception. 

The  modes  of  extension  depend  upon  the  movement 
of  the  parts  into  which  matter  is  divided.  Matter,  i.e.  is 
conceived  by  Descartes  mathematically ;  there  is  ultimately 
nothing  in  it  which  cannot  come  under  solid  geometry.  All 
changes  in  body  are  merely  modes  of  motion.  Towards 
this  new  conception  other  minds  besides  Descartes'  were 
working.  Bacon  had  made  out  that  heat  consists  in  an 
agitation  of  the  minute  particles  of  bodies.  Compare  too 
Hobbes's  groping  after  a  doctrine  of  motion  *.  Locke  took 
over  Descartes'  distinction,  and  expressed  it  from  his  expe- 
riential standpoint  as  the  distinction  between  Primary  and 
Secondary  Qualities. 

1  Thought  (pensee)  in  Descartes  is  simply  a  name  for  all  subjective 
experience,  for  whatever  we  are  conscious  of. 

2  Genus,  species,  differentia,  property,  accident 

3  Vide  Hobbes  by  G.  C.  Robertson  Knight s  Philosophical  Classics), 
PP-  33,  4i  43,  93  —Ed. 


LECTURE  XXIV. 

ON   THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    DFSCARTES    {continued). 
Reading. — Meditation  VI.    Principia.    Les  Passions  de  V Ame  {Simon). 

We  pass  lightly  over  Descartes'  physical  philosophy  (which 
occupies  the  greater  part  of  the  Principia),  but  so  as  to* 
note  how  it  comes  into  his  general  scheme  of  philosophy. 
Beginning  with  man  as  pure  intellect,  he  went  on  to  the  ex- 
istence of  the  material  world,  and  grasping  this,  came  round 
again  to  deal  fully  with  man  and  the  '  Passions '  of  his  nature. 

We  saw  that,  according  to  Descartes,  body  is  extended,  and 
nothing  else,  just  as  mind  is  a  thinking  thing  only.  Without 
extension  we  have  no  idea  of  body,  or  only  a  confused  idea. 
Extension  has  length,  breadth,  depth,  and  there  are  no 
more  ways  of  thinking  of  it ;  therefore  body  has  these  only. 

Descartes  is  at  some  pains  to  defend  his  position  that 
body  is  space  {Principia,  II.  §§  10-15),  an^  it  is  interesting 
to  note  how  he  tries  to  show  that  there  is  nothing  in  his  view 
at  variance  with  ordinary  notions.  He  further  faces  the 
question,  which  much  occupied  contemporary  science,  of 
condensation  and  rarefaction,  and  their  action  on  the  pores 
of  bodies,  trying  to  prove  that  a  body  remains  the  same, 
whether  its  pores  expand  or  not.  We  see  that  he  gets  his 
notion  of  body  by  way  of  metaphysic,  instead  of  positive 
science,  and  consequently  has  to  defend  himself  against 
science.      For  instance,  as  space  is  essentially  the  mode  of 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  259 

body,  vacuum,  as  space  empty  of  all  body,  is  philosophically 
impossible ;  space  cannot  be  free  from  all  body.  You  may 
empty  your  bucket  as  you  please,  but  you  cannot  empty 
space — and  therefore  body — till  the  sides  collapse.  What  is 
nothing  cannot  have  extension,  and  as  space  has  extension, 
it  always  has  body.  And  there  never  can  be  more  or  less 
body  in  space  at  one  time  than  at  another.  Compare  this 
treatment  with  Locke's  on  simple  modes  of  space  (Essay, 
ch.  xiii).  Locke's  distinction  between  space  and  body  is  not 
got  by  way  of  metaphysic,  but  is  accommodated  to  modern 
physics,  and  is  a  perfectly  rational  determination.  We  can 
distinguish  between  space  which  does  not  resist  movement 
and  space  which  does  ;  and  this  difference  can  be  psycho- 
logically grounded.  Mis  psychology  is  often  crude,  but  here 
it  stands  firm. 

Again,  physics  still  assumes  that  there  are  such  things 
as  atoms — natural  indivisible  bodies.  Nobody  ever  doubted 
that  an  atom,  if  extended,  can  be  thought  of  as  broken 
up,  but  that  there  are  certain  elements  that  canwc/  physically 
be  broken  up  is  the  basis  of  physical  science.  Descartes 
meets  this  by  saying  that  atoms  cannot  exist,  for  space 
as  always  extended  must  always  be  divisible. 

As  to  movement,  Descartes  laid  stress  on  this,  that  it  can 
be  said  only  of  a  body  with  respect  to  what  it  is  immediately 
in  contact  with.  If  a  body  does  not  change  place  with 
reference  to  what  is  around  it,  it  can  be  said  not  to  move. 
This,  it  may  be,  was  said  to  justify  his  suppression  of  his  own 
Galilean  view  sin  the  Principia.  The  theory,  which  we  will 
not  pause  over  longer,  is  another  instance  of  the  futility 
of  solving  such  questions  by  metaphysic.  Descartes  ends  by 
finding  that  movement  was  so  different  from  extension  that 
it  must  come  from  outside,  from  God,  who  created  some 


260  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

bodies  having  motion,  others  having  the,  for  Descartes,  no 
less  positive  mode  of  rest.  And  it  follows  from  the  un- 
changeable nature  of  God  that  the  quantity  of  motion  and 
rest  is  invariable  for  ever.  He  is  not  content  to  put  his 
conservation  of  movement  as  a  hypothesis  to  be  verified 
by  results,  but  gives  it  as  a  certainty  from  first  principles. 
He  does  not  admit  conservation  of  energy,  nay,  he  abhors  it. 
It  was  Leibniz  who  insisted  on  that  notion.  Descartes  gives 
three  fundamental  laws  of  nature,  i.  e.  of  motion.  Coming 
shortly  after  Galileo  had  enunciated  three  laws,  and  a 
generation  before  Newton  gave  them  their  final  form,  they  are 
interesting  {Prin.  II,  §§  37-40).  With  the  first  two  Newton^ 
practically  agreed,  but  the  third  turned  him  from  Descartes. 
His  copy  of  the  Principia  at  Cambridge  bears  the  repeated 
marginal  note  '  error  !  error  !  error ! '  The  law  contains 
a  denial  of  action  and  reaction  in  matter.  Matter  is  the 
mere  bearer  of  something  communicated  to  it ;  it  can  have 
no  energy. 

In  the  second  book,  where  he  is  determining  different 
kinds  of  bodies,  we  come  on  his  notion  of  fluid.  Bodies 
are  hard,  i.  e.  resist  separation,  only  in  so  far  as  they  have 
*  rest '  in  them.  Bodies  which  do  not  resist  separation,  have 
not  rest  but  motion,  and  are  fluid.  This  determination 
is  made  with  a  view  to  his  explanation  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  universe.  His  physics  is  an  explanation  of  the  universe 
on  a  hydro-dynamic  basis.  Given  bodies  that  don't  move 
and  fluids  that  do,  it  follows  that  all  change  must  come  from 
interaction  of  particles  that  have  been  in  motion  from 
the  beginning  with  those  that  have  been  at  rest  from  the 
beginning.  The  smallest  addition  of  motion  in  any 
direction  is  enough  to  set  up  vortices,  that  is,  streams  of 
motion  by  which  bodies,  the  parts  of  which  are  not  moved, 


xxiv.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  261 

may  be  borne  along,  going  all  through  the  universe.  With 
this  famous  notion  he  goes  on  to  attempt  to  set  out  a  doctrine 
of  the  relation  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  expressing  all  the 
results  of  the  Copernican  theory,  yet  so  as  not  to  run 
counter  to  the  tenet  of  the  Church  that  the  earth  stands 
still.  Copernicus,  in  the  face  of  Church  doctrine,  revived 
a  notion  started  in  the  Greek  period,  but  soon  submerged. 
Then  Tycho  Brahe  (1 546-1 601)  accounted  for  the  phenomena 
by  the  theory  that  the  planets  (not  the  earth)  went  round  the 
sun,  and  the  sun  went  round  the  earth.  Descartes  had 
a  mind  to  be  more  careful  than  Copernicus,  and  to  reason 
more  truly  than  Brahe.  His  hypothesis  is  that  the  heavens 
as  we  behold  them  are  fluid,  that  is,  in  motion*  In  them 
are  streams,  invisible  through  the  rarefaction  of  matter, 
bearing  the  bodies  along.  The  earth  reposes  in  its  heaven 
or  voitex,  while  yet  it  is  borne  along  with  it. 

He  may  have  been  quite  sincere  in  this.  By  his  definition 
of  motion,  if  the  earth  remains  always  in  contact  with  the 
same  particles  of  its  stream,  it  is  not  moved,  however  much 
it  may  change  its  relations  to  the  planets.  At  any  rate  his 
theory  got  all  the  benefit  of  motion  round  the  sun  without  the 
blame.  '  I  am  much  more  circumspect  than  Copernicus/  he 
wrote..  His  hypothesis  was  accepted  for  some  time,  especially 
in  France,  but  was  dislodged  by  the  Newtonian  hypothesis 
of  attraction.  Not  that  physicists  are  even  now  agreed  as 
to  how  action  at  a  distance  takes  place.  But  when  more 
accurate  observations  were  made  by  Hooke  and  Newton's 
other  predecessors,  it  was  inevitably  suggested  to  Newton, 
that  action  and  reaction  was  a  better  hypothesis  than  bodies 
borne  about  in  streams — a  theory  due  not  to  observation 
but  to  general  reasoning. 

In  the   cosmogony  too  which  follows  (Prin.  III.  §    47) 


262  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

the  whole  conception  misses  its  point  for  want  of  true 
scientific  method.  It  is  interesting  as  speculation,  as  poetry, 
but  it  is  not  science. 

We  now  come  down  to  earth  (Prin.  IV).  Materials  and 
leisure  did  not  suffice  for  him  to  write  all  he  had  schemed 
on  Plants,  Animals,  Man  (see  Preface),  hence  he  confines 
himself  to  objects  as  they  affect  our  senses,  leaving  Plants 
out  entirely,  and  dealing  with  Animals  in  the  Passions, 
Book  I,  and  in  Part  V  of  his  earliest  work  on  Method. 
Descartes  experimented  much  in  dissecting,  but  found 
nothing  to  modify  his  idea  of  animal,  viz.  that  animals 
are  simply  material  things  more  complex  than  the  rest — 
are  only  machines  of  a  more  complicated  kind — so  complex 
indeed  that  we  must  call  them  automata,  i.  e.  they  have 
something  within  them  that  sets  them  moving.  They  are 
machines  with  hearts,  the  heart  distilling  the  mechanical 
agent  of  'vital  spirits'  into  the  blood,  and  this  bearing 
them  to  the  pineal  gland  in  the  brain,  on  which  all  external 
impressions  finally  impinge,  and  from  which  all  outward 
movement  issues.  Animal  life  is  the  expression  of  the  com- 
plexity of  their  mechanism.  But  animals  have  no  self- 
consciousness  and  therefore  no  soul  or  mind ;  for  without 
self-consciousness  there  is  no  thinking.  Whereas,  whatever 
sense  may  be,  man  as  man  is  thought.  Descartes  conceives 
no  middle  ground  between  thinking  and  extended  being. 
Man  is  both.     Animals  are  only  the  latter. 

Descartes'  followers  rigidly  applied  this  theory,  even  to 
the  length  of  treating  animals  with  barbarity.  Even  the 
gentle  and  holy  Malebranche,  on  being  remonstrated  with 
for  mercilessly  belabouring  a  friendly  dog.  replied, '  You  don't 
supj  ose  it  feels  ? '  Vivisection  was  largely  practised  by  them, 
and  regarded  with  as   much  indifference   as   the  breaking 


xxiv.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  263 

up  of  a  stone.  Nevertheless  Descartes  himself  often  said, 
it  were  better,  in  the  interests  of  moral  training,  to  treat 
animals  as  though  they  did  feel.  He  had  no  doubt 
at  all  that  animals  were  pure  automata,  but  he  was  not 
oblivious  of  the  difficulties  besetting  his  theory.  Animals 
might  act  like  men  and  show  mind  to  some  extent,  never- 
theless there  was  nothing  in  their  ways  that  could  not  be 
interpreted  as  the  action  of  a  fine  machine. 

From  animals  to  man  the  distance  is  great.  Animals 
are  only  bodies ;  man  is  fundamentally  not  body.  He  is 
in  the  first  instance  '  I  myself/  knowing  myself  as  mind 
and  body;  and  if  I  acquire  the  conviction  that  there  are 
other  men,  of  them  also  it  may  be  said  they  are  mind  and 
body.  What  then  is  the  relation  between  these  two  ?  What 
is  the  character  of  man  as  mind,  and  then  as  body  ? 

Be/ore  Descartes  had  arrived  in  the  Principia  at  his 
doctrine  of  nature  he  was  disposed  so  to  aggrandise  the 
sphere  of  thinking  as  to  regard  all  mental  manifestations — 
feeling,  willing,  imagination,  and  even  sense — as  modes 
of  thought.  In  the  Regies  (XII.)  sense  and  imagination 
are  names  for  nervous  processes.  At  the  same  time  he 
conceives  a  force,  one  with  body,  but  yet  spiritual,  which 
acts  and  reacts  upon  them.  He  then  goes  on  to  include  in 
that  force  itself  sense,  memory,  imagination  and  thought 
proper — all  being  pure  intellect  acting  under  certain  con- 
ditions. Yet  again,  he  denies  that  memory  is  mental.  If 
we  do  not  remember  our  dream-consciousness,  it  is  because 
memory,  being  bodily,  is  not  able  to  rehearse  the  mental. 
Thought,  for  Descartes,  implied  an  ever-piesent  conscious- 
ness of  thinking. 

Lite,  for  Descartes  (cf.  the  beginning  of  the  Passions), 
is  not  soul   at  a  lower  power,  but  is  out  of  relation  to  it. 


264  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

It  is  an  affair  simply  of  body,  explicable  in  terms  of  physics 
only — not  even  of  chemistry.  Animals  have  life,  but  not 
soul  (or  mind) — a  conception  which  is  not  borne  out  by 
observation,  nor  now  maintained  except  by  the  incautious. 
In  succeeding  generations  this  materialism  with  regard  to 
life  was  extended  to  mind.  Evolution  is  entirely  and  utterly 
outside  Descartes.  Angels  and  God  have  no  body ;  animals 
have  no  mind.  Man  alone  has  both — mutually  interrelated. 
How  this  can  be  when  they  have  been  pronounced  mutually 
exclusive  and  contradictory  is  a  difficulty  that  does  not 
escape  him.  He  attempts  to  explain,  but  the  difficulties 
cause  him  sometimes  to  shift  his  ground.  In  the  Meditations 
and  Principia  he  finds  that  this  mutual  interrelation  of  body 
to  mind  makes  sense  and  imagination  inferior  to  pure 
thinking.  In  the  Passions  his  procedure  is  different.  He  is 
fearful  of  bringing  animals  into  too  close  a  relation  to  man, 
if  he  allows  sense  and  imagination  to  be  modes  of  thinking 
involving  relation  to  matter.  Else  it  might  be  said,  Animals 
have  sense,  and  thus  mind  of  a  low  sort.  He  does  not  deny 
sensations  and  appetites  in  animals ;  they  act  as  if  they  had 
these.  But  it  is  not  sense-appetite  or  imagination  either 
that  he  seeks  to  explain  by  reference  to  any  conjunction 
between  mind  and  body,  but  a  set  of  proper  mental  states 
which  cannot  be  assigned  to  animals — 'passive  mental 
states/  namely,  which  he  opposes  to  the  '  simple  actions 
of  the  soul.'  He  does  not  abandon  his  view  of  imagination 
and  the  rest  as  modes  of  thought,  but  calls  them,  and  also 
sensations  and  appetites,  passions  as  regards  the  soul.  It 
is  not  only  to  save  the  character  of  man  that  he  lays  stress 
on  so-called  passions;  he  desires  to  consider  emotions 
proper  with  an  ethical  purpose,  of  which  he  has  said  little 
elsewhere.      He  has    also    a    more   explicit   statement    to 


xxiv.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  265 

make  of  the  conditions  of  mind's  relation  to  body.  Sense, 
imagination,  &c.,  are  what  they  are  because  of  that  relation. 
And  in  this  work  we  find  the  expression,  turned  to  such 
account  by  Leibniz,  of  con/used  and  obscure  perceptions, 
arising  from  the  mutually  discrepant  functioning  of  soul  and 
body. 

We  come  at  length  to  the  statement  (Art.  30)  '  that 
mind  is  united  to  all  parts  of  the  body  conjointly,'  the 
latter  being  in  a  way,  i.  e.  as  organ,  indivisible.  Thus 
he  is  forced  to  allow,  in  the  human  body  at  least,  more 
than  mere  extension.  Yet,  he  proceeds  (Art.  31),  notwith- 
standing this  general  connexion,  there  is  a  certain  part  where 
mind  functions  more  particularly,  and  that  is  (not  the  heart 
but)  the  brain,  and  in  that  the  only  part  not  bilateral — the 
pineal  gland.  He  had  thus  a  sound  idea  of  the  importance 
of  the  nervous  system  as  few  had  before  him.  But  here  the 
same  difficulties  meet  him.  For  the  pineal  gland  has  two 
sides,  has  extension,  while  mind  is  unextended.  He  might 
just  as  well  have  taken  the  whole  brain  or  the  whole  body. 
The  gland  (Art.  34)  stands  between  body  and  soul,  and 
transmits  changes  both  ways  by  way  of  the  fine  matter 
(animal  spirits)  produced  by  the  heart,  transmitted  by  the 
nerves  as  through  tubes,  and  stored  in  the  so-called  ventricles 
of  the  brain.  The  gland  can  be  moved  in  as  many  ways  as 
there  are  changes  produced  in  the  body  from  without.  It 
can  also  be  divinely  moved  by  the  soul.  And  there  he  leaves 
it — in  the  Passions. 

Now  he  had  said  nothing  can  move  of  itself.  Motion 
is  a  constant  quantity,  and  must  be  transmitted.  How  does 
the  immaterial  soul  move  the  extended  gland  ?  If  his  reply 
to  the  fourth  objection  (Arnauld's)  in  the  Meditations  be 
referred  to  (Jules  Simon's  ed.  p.  233),  it  will  be  seen  that 


266  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

the  soul  does  not  really  set  the  body  in  motion,  but  can  only 
direct  {determiner)  the  motion  of  the  vital  spirits.  This  idea 
of  a  directive  power  is  worthier,  and  has  of  late  years  been 
urged  by  physicists.  In  it  he  found  a  distinction  between 
animals  and  men.  A  man's  actions  on  being  struck  are 
characterised  by  a  more  varied  range  than  a  dog's,  because 
of  his  power  to  direct  the  vital  spirits.  Consciousness  cannot 
give  us  the  means  of  creating  movement,  but  it  can  give 
a  different  outcome.  Descartes'  difficulties  are  really  of  his 
own  making.  The  definition  that  he  persists  in  giving 
of  body  and  mind  must  entail  perplexity  as  to  their  mutual 
relation ;  and  it  is  these  definitions  that  made  Geulincx, 
Malebranche,  and  Leibniz  differ  so  widely  from  their  master. 

Finally  as  to  the  '  Passions,'  Descartes  uses  the  word 
in  a  wider  sense — passions  of  mind  as  opposed  to  actions 
of  mind,  thought  including  of  course  both — and  in  a  narrower 
sense — all  sorts  of  perceptions  or  'knowledges'  that  do  not 
arise  through  actions  of  the  mind  but  are  as  the  mind  receives 
them.  In  other  words,  passions  are  all  mental  states  except 
volitions.  Of  these  there  are  three  kinds.  First — and  there 
seems  here  a  contradiction — some  passions  may  arise  from 
mind  as  the  cause  of  the  perceptions,  as  when  we  perceive 
that  we  will.  He  admits  these  are  perhaps  better  called 
actions.  Secondly,  indirect  affections,  or  sensations  due  to 
external  bodies.     Thirdly,  direct  affections,  or  appetites  *« 

Thus  he  does  not  deny  here  that  sensations  and  appetites, 
arising  in  the  body,  are  of  the  mind,  although  he  is  more 
inclined  to  refer  them  all,  as  with  animals,  to  the  body. 
His  judgment  wavers.  To  him  the  emotions  seemed,  of 
all  states  due  to  the  interaction  of  soul  and  body,  far  more 
impressive  than  imagination  and  sensation.  Even  when 
1  In  Art.  23  he  adds  lortuitous  representations. 


xxiv.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  267 

not  excited  by  sense — as,  e.  g.  fear  at  sight  of  a  tiger — an 
emotion  has  a  confusing  disturbing  effect  on  the  purely 
mental  life.  It  may  be  said,  appetites  are  powerful  dis- 
turbers; but  Descartes  might  have  replied,  they  disturb 
us  only  as  they  rouse  emotions  that  disturb  us.  And 
objects,  he  said,  excite  passions  only  by  reason  of  the 
diverse  ways  in  which  they  may  hurt  or  profit  us,  or  in 
general  be  important  for  us.  It  is  only  as  objects  can  be 
thought  of  as  beneficial  or  hurtful  to  the  body  that 
emotions  can  arise.  Emotions,  then,  are  the  expression 
of  a  value  for  the  individual.  This  is  true  and  shows 
a  sound  grasp  of  the  import  of  emotion. 

He  also  orders  the  emotions  well  and  scientifically,  as 
primitive  (or  general),  and  secondary  (particular),  although 
general  considerations,  both  ethical  and  logical,  are  mixed 
up  with  his  exposition.  The  primitive  emotions  are  wonder, 
love,  hate,  desire,  joy,  sorrow,  his  definition  of  emotion  being 
however  applicable  to  only  five.  In  his  striking  doctrine 
of  Wonder,  where  he  shows  great  psychological  acumen, 
he  really  has  hold  of  the  same  element  as  Professor 
Bain  has  in  neutral  feelings,  or  emotions  of  relativity, 
which  no  thorough  scientific  analysis  can  ignore.  He  means 
that  there  is  a  certain  emotional  condition  that  is  neutral 
in  the  sense  of  not  being  hurtful  or  beneficial.  And  while 
he  thus  places  Wonder  first,  he  assigns  a  special  ethical 
importance  to  it  at  the  end  of  his  treatise,  as  that  emotion 
by  which  the  freely  willing  mind  is  able  to  subdue  the  other 
passions,  since  it  is  subservient  to  the  emotionally  neutral  function 
of  knowing. 

The  other  five  fall  into  three  groups.  Love  and  hate 
are  the  simplest  expression  of  the  mind  as  regards  pleasure 
and  pain.     The  good  =  the  loved ;    the  bad  =  the  hated. 


268  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

They  are  one  emotion  in  different  relations.  Desire  is 
the  phase  where  good  and  evil  are  in  the  future.  Joy  and 
sorrow  are  passions  in  the  actual  presence  of  good  and 
evil ;  and  are  dual  like  the  former  two.  Why  is  Desire 
not  dual?  A  man  desiring  has  always  hope  and  fear. 
Desire  therefore  is  dual,  but  implicitly  so.  Wonder  is  not 
dual,  for  though  it  is  a  passion,  it  has  no  relation  to  good 
and  evil,  but  arises  simply  from  novelty.  From  these  genera 
all  other  passions  may  be  derived  as  specific  or  secondary. 

From  his  definition  of  mind  as  thought,  and  emotions 
or  passions  as  slates  where  pure  thinking  is  affected  by 
body,  it  follows  that  in  order  to  clear  thinking  the  emotions 
must  be  kept  down ;  nevertheless  he  well  saw  how  much 
driving  power  there  lies  in  passion  properly  directed.  And 
of  all  the  passions  that  one  which  makes  for  knowledge  and 
may  be  made  to  support  mind  as  thinking  is  wonder.  The 
remedy  for  passion  as  disturbing  mind  is  the  free,  voluntary 
activity  of  thought.  To  keep  passions  down,  we  must  think 
clearly,  know  fully,  under  the  guidance  of  wonder.  Know- 
ledge of  the  true  value  of  things,  of  the  true  limits  of 
our  powers,  of  the  unalterable  laws  of  nature  as  it  can  be 
got  by  exciting  wonder  or  curiosity,  suffices  to  hold  the  other 
passions  in  subjection.  The  soul,  by  its  power  of  thinking, 
can  suppress  one  passion  indirectly  by  dwelling  on  another. 
This  is  good  psychology,  whatever  may  be  said  of  his 
physiology,  namely,  that  the  pineal  gland  diverts  the  course 
of  the  vital  spirits.  But,  he  held,  this  was  a  weak  method ; 
the  better  way  is  to  live  with  firm  and  determinate  judgments 
touching  good  and  evil  as  attained  by  clear  thinking. 

Here  his  system  properly  ends,  and  it  is  in  this  connexion 
that  he  made  the  greatest  advance  on  his  predecessors  in 
psychology.     He  was  distinctly  on  the  track  of  physiological 


xxiv.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  269 

psychology,  though  of  course  with  deficient  knowledge  of  the 
nervous  system. 

As  to  the  merits  of  his  system  generally,  it  may  be  said 
(1)  that  in  reach  and  all-comprehensiveness  it  stands  perhaps 
unique  in  the  history  of  human  thought.  (2)  Note  the  logical 
consequence  of  it,  onward  from  the  methodology,  in  which  this 
is  made  the  first  requisite,  to  the  most  detailed  applications 
of  its  general  principles,  and  into  the  heroic  efforts  made 
to  grapple  with  the  difficulties  which  it  hardly  pretended 
to  surmount.  I  do  not  mean  that  everything  in  the  system 
follows  with  perfect  consequence,  but  this  is  certainly  aimed 
at,  and  there  is  never  any  shifting  of  particular  consequences. 
(3)  Mark  also  its  originality,  which  is  attested  at  every  step, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  in  this  or  that  point  there  had 
been  ancient  and  scholastic  anticipations  (especially  in 
Augustin) — some  of  them  striking — of  Descartes'  doctrine. 
It  constituted  an  almost  incredible  advance  upon  Scholasti- 
cism, especially  in  the  apprehension  or  explanation  of  nature. 
And  this  may  be  claimed  for  it,  even  although  it  so  often 
puts  the  material  world  out  of  sight  when  human  mental 
conditions  are  considered.  It  put  forward  the  sceptical 
subjective  point  of  view  as  against  the  authoritative,  tradi- 
tional and  formal  dicta  of  Scholasticism,  constituting,  by 
virtue  of  its  personal  starting-point,  a  philosophy  which,  if  it 
cannot  be  considered  satisfactory,  never  can  lose  its  meaning 
as  Scholasticism,  with  its  abstract  generalities  about  things, 
has  done. 


y 


LECTURE   XXV. 


ON    CARTESIANISM 


It  was  in  Holland  and  France,  the  land  of  his  adoption 
and  the  land  of  his  birth,  that  the  effect  of  Descartes' 
philosophy  was  at  once  decisive  and  immediate.  There 
it  was  both  actively  opposed  and  actively  propagated  and 
developed,  unlike  its  fate  in  England  and  Germany,  England 
particularly,  where  it  was  received  without  enthusiasm,  and 
in  neither  was  immediately — in  England  not  at  any  time — 
carried  further. 

In  Holland  mere  propagation  (headed  by  Reneri  and 
Regius)  began  to  give  place  to  transformation  and  develop- 
ment through  Claubergius  (a  German  in  Holland)  and 
others,  till  by  Arnold  Geulincx,  a  convert  to  Calvinislic 
Protestantism,  Occasionalism  was  put  forth  as  the  legitimate 
interpretation  of  the  master's  thought.  Violent  religious 
hostility,  from  the  time  of  Voetius  at  Utrecht,  on  the  pait 
of  the  orthodox  clergy,  caused  the  Cartesians  to  draw  to- 
wards the  dissenting  theologians — the  Arminians,  &c. — 
with  whom  they  were  denounced  as  enemies,  sometimes 
Jesuitical  (!)  enemies — to  the  faith. 

In  France  the  development  of  Cartesianism  took  place 
not  in  the  Universities,  which  remained  scholastic,  and  where 
(at  least  in  Paris  in  167 1)  it  was  formally  proscribed,  but 

1  Selected  from  the  author's  MSS.  and  from  lectures  delivered 
1880,  1886,  and  1891. 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  271 

among  the  religious  orders.  Opposed  by  the  Jesuits  whom 
Descartes  had  been  so  eager  to  gain,  but  who  stood  to 
the  Schoolmen  or  to  Gassendi  until  the  new  empirical 
philosophy  arose,  the  system  was  accepted  by  the  Jansenists 
of  Port  Royal,  the  fathers  of  the  Oratory,  and  other  con- 
gregations. It  was  looked  upon  with  favour  by  Fe*nelon, 
Bossuet,  &c,  propagated  in  private  associations  for  science, 
and  in  society  became  a  fashion.  The  most  sympathetic 
critic  and  follower  was  Arnauld,  whose  criticisms  Descartes 
treated  with  most  respect.  The  most  important  was  Nicole 
Malebranche,  priest  of  the  Oratory  (founded  by  Descartes' 
patron  Cardinal  Beiulle,  a  free  order  for  the  advancement 
of  theology).  Malebranche  was  turned  to  the  passionate 
study  of  philosophy  by  Descartes. 

The  thinkers  who  thus  succeeded  Descartes  may  be  called 
Cartesians,  not  only  because  they  were  stirred  up  by  him 
to  thought  and  to  the  discovery  of  a  way  out  of  the  contra- 
dictions in  which  he  landed  himself,  but  also  because  for 
all  of  them  the  refuge  lies  in  the  idea  of  the  Infinite  Sub- 
stance, God.  None  of  them  are  theological  thinkers  in 
the  sense  that  the  Schoolmen  were.  The  starting-point 
with  all  is  the  human  reason,  and  the  goal  is  rational  ex- 
planation. But  the  way  lies  through  the  (rational)  idea  of 
the  Deity.  They  are  Theistic  thinkers,  and  are  ultimately 
Pantheistic,  perforce  if  not  voluntarily,  for  the  whole  Car- 
tesian movement  tends  to  Pantheism. 

Now  Descartes'  philosophy  in  its  result  is  properly  ex- 
pressed by  Kuno  Fischer  as  a  double  Dualism,  viz.  of 
substances  opposed  and  constituted  by  the  opposition : — 
(1)  of  God  (Infinite)  and  the  World  (finite),  or  all  things 
created;  (2)  of  Mind  (thinking  substance)  and  Body 
(extended  substance).     Descartes  is  seriously  concerned  to 


272  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [lect. 

maintain  that  God  exists  apart  from  the  world,  and  the 
world  exists  per  se.  And  Mind,  as  part  of  the  world,  is, 
by  its  liability  to  err,  and  still  more  by  its  power  to  escape 
from  error  (free  power  of  self-determination),  regarded  by 
him  as  having  a  substantial  existence.  Nevertheless  by  his 
own  definition  of  substance,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
apply  it  univocally  to  God  and  anything  created.  Mind 
is  dependent  upon  God  for  knowledge.  Matter  is  entirely 
inert,  and  must  be  moved  by  God.  And  creatures  are  not 
only  called  into  being  by  God,  but  need  re-creating  every 
moment.     Existence  is  a  continual  creation. 

With  regard  to  the  other  dualism,  however  strongly  he 
maintained  the  absolute  independence  of  mind  and  body, 
we  saw  him  in  difficulties  through  the  testimony  of  facts 
to  the  existence  of  a  relation  between  them.  He  wavers 
between  calling  this  a  substantial  union  or  a  unity  of  com- 
position only.  He  wavers  as  to  sense  and  imagination.  His 
chief  merit  is  his  courage  and  honesty  in  uttering  his  diffi- 
culties. His  dualism  he  must  be  understood  to  maintain 
notwithstanding ;  and  the  contradictions  are  so  many  incon- 
sistent and  wavering  concessions  to  facts  which  he  cannot 
shut  his  eyes  to.  Or  if  at  times  he  is  upon  a  way  to 
surmount  the  difficulties  by  aggrandising  the  theistic  element, 
it  is  at  the  expense  of  his  dualism. 

The  action  of  his  school  was  determined  by  this  position 
of  the  master,  and  had  two  courses  open  to  it : — 

1.  To  maintain  the  dualistic  principles  strictly — as  strictly 
at  least  as  possible — and  by  a  definite  line,  instead  of  the 
master's  wavering  attitude,  to  explain  away  some,  if  not  all, 
the  difficulties,  resigning  if  necessary  the  very  idea  of  natural 
or  philosophical  explanation,  the  desire  not  to  let  go  which 
was  the  occasion  of  his  very  hesitation  and  wavering. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  273 

2.  To  maintain  the  dualistic  principles  only  in  such  a  form 
as  that  the  difficulties  cease  to  be  in  the  same  way  real, 
i.e.  to  give  a  natural  or  philosophical  explanation  of  the 
difficulties,  but  in  so  doing  to  resign  the  dualism. 

The  first  course  is  known  as  the  theory  of  Occasionalism. 
The  dualism  of  body  and  mind  is  strictly  maintained;  that 
of  God  and  the  world  as  far  as  possible,  since  it  is  the 
divine  (personal)  agency  that  is  explicitly  and  uniformly 
recurred  to  for  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  as  between  body 
and  mind.  Occasionalism,  in  short,  surmounts  the  difficulty 
of  interaction  of  body  and  mind  at  the  expense  of  natural 
or  philosophical  explanation,  and  by  overlooking  the  diffi- 
culty between  God  and  World: — uniformly  at  the  expense 
of  philosophical  explanation;  and  if  not  by  uniformly 
ignoring  the  difficulty  between  God  and  World,  then  with 
an  explanation  of  this  which  tends  towards  the  second  course. 

Now  the  difficulty  of  Body  and  Mind  is  twofold  : — 

(a)  There  is  no  doubt  according  to  Descartes  about  the 
substantiality  of  both.  Bodies  in  no  respect  need  minds 
for  their  existence,  nor  do  minds  need  bodies.  But  bodies 
and  minds  undoubtedly  appear  to  be  related  to  each  other 
in  two  obvious  ways : — mind  is  acted  on  through  body, 
e.g.  in  sense;  body  is  acted  on  by  mind,  e.g.  in  volition. 
Now  how,  if  they  are  totally  opposed  substances,  can  mind 
move  body,  or  body  impress  mind?  Both  Geulincx  and 
Malebranche  replied,  by  the  action  of  the  Deity  upon  occasion 
of  the  change  in  either,  God  alone  being  able  to  effect  it. 
There  is  in  reality  no  interaction  between  body  and  mind. 
By  omnipotence  God  excites  perception  when  he  moves 
body.  Hence  it  is  not  less  wonderful  for  my  tongue  to 
move  when  I  will  to  speak  than  that  the  globe  should 
tremble. 


274  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

(5)  But  mind  and  body  have  a  more  special  relation : — 
mind  knows  body,  body  is  known  by  mind.  Then  how 
can  thinking  substance  know  substance  that  does  not  think  ? 
How,  being  itself  non-extended,  can  it  have  even  an  idea 
of  Extension?  Malebranche  replied — Plato  had  inspired 
the  thought — by  having  a  vision  of  Extension  (as  of  all  things) 
not  only  through  but  '  in '  God ;  for  God  can  possess  the 
idea  of  Extension,  and  ideas  are  not  only  divine,  but  are 
not  to  be  detached  from  the  nature  of  God.  It  is  not  we 
who  know,  but  God  who  knows  through  us1. 

The  second  course  is  Spinozism 2. 

This  retains  the  dualism  of  body  and  mind  only  as  an* 
opposition  of  attributes,  instead  of  substances,  while  the 
dualism  of  God  and  World  wholly  vanishes.  Deus  sive 
Natura  is  one  substance,  of  which  Thought  and  Extension 
are  alike  attributes,  and  minds  and  things  passing  modes. 
God  therefore  as  single  and  solitary  substance — thus  was 
the  theistic  element  in  Descartes'  system — which  is  theistic, 
if  ever  philosophy  was — developed  in  and  by  Spinoza3. 

Manifestly  the  two   directions   of  thought   here  outlined 

1  Note  that  whereas  Malebranche  explained  knowledge  by  God, 
Berkeley  explained  God's  existence  from  his  theory  of  knowledge. 

2  Reading. — Spinoza.  By  Principal  Caird.  (Knight's  Philosophical 
Classics.)  (Circumspect,  exact,  good  generally,  especially  on  the 
epistemology.)  Spinoza.  By  Dr.  Martineau.  (Learned,  eloquent, 
but  too  polemical  for  deepest  insight.)  Spinoza.  By  Sir  F.  Pollock. 
(Brilliant  but  inexact.)  Kuno  Fischer  and  Erdmann,  in  their  histories 
of  philosophy. 

Of  the  translations— White's  (Trflbner)  and  Elwes's  (Bohn  series) 
are  both  very  good,  but  should  be  read  if  possible  with  constant 
reference  to  the  original  (best  edition,  Vloten  and  Land,  Hagae 
Comitum,  1892-3^. 

3  In  the  Ethica  Spinoza  has  attained  to  fully  developed  Monism  ;  in 
the  Tractatus  Brevis  he  is  still  a  halfhearted  Dualist. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  275 

are  both  Cartesian.  Spinoza,  as  little  as  Geulincx  or  Male- 
branche,  would  have  thought  as  he  did  but  for  Descartes. 
The  two  lines  of  thought  are  not  however  equally  Cartesian. 
It  is  one  thing  to  take  for  a  principle  the  Dualism  that 
Descartes  tried  to  reach  consistently,  though  he  could  not, 
and  seek  a  means  (philosophical  or  not)  of  resting  there. 
It  is  another  thing  to  take  for  a  principle  the  Monism  or 
Pantheism  that  Descartes  could  not  avoid  falling  into  and 
(although  with  the  help  of  a  dualism  of  Thought  and  Extension) 
to  work  out  into  its  utmost  details  a  system  antagonistic 
to  Descartes'.  The  difference  is  the  difference  between  the 
action  of  disciples  and  the  action  of  an  original  thinker 
who  takes  and  hands  on  the  torch  in  the  philosophic  race. 
That  Spinoza,  and  not  Geulincx  or  Malebranche,  made  a  real 
advance,  and  the  necessary  advance  in  thought  from  the 
point  to  which  Descartes  had  been  carried,  is  clear  from 
this,  that  neither  of  these  two  found  it  possible  to  save 
their  master's  Dualism,  or  to  get  out  of  the  current  that 
bore  them  towards  Spinoza.  If  Spinoza  himself  succeeded 
as  little  in  reaching  a  sure  resting-place,  that  was  not  because 
his  thought  was  not  a  distinct  advance  and  a  grand  achieve- 
ment, but  because  his  principles,  both  his  own  and  those 
he  had  from  Descartes,  were  what  they  were. 

Let  us  now  look  more  closely  at  the  second  course 
(Spinozism)  in  its  relation  to  Descartes. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  put  forward  Spinoza  as  the  last 
great  link  in  the  Cartesian  chain,  seeing  he  began  to  philo- 
sophise hardly  later  than  Geulincx,  and  had  worked  out  the 
greater  part  of  his  extraordinary  system  before  Malebranche 
knew  a  line  of  Descartes'  writings.  The  last  link  he  is, 
nevertheless,  in  respect  of  the  logical  import  of  his  doctrine. 


276  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

Even  historically  also,  if  we  go  upon  the  date  of  the  publica- 
tion of  their  most  important  works,  Malebranche  precedes 
Spinoza.  Though  he  lived  forty  years  longer  than  the 
latter,  and  began  to  think  later,  his  chief  work  Recherche  de  la 
Ve'rite  appeared  three  years  before  Spinoza's  Ethica,  and 
already  in  that  work  his  involuntary  Spinozism  is  clearly 
enough  marked.  The  truth  is,  Malebranche  drifted  towards 
Spinoza  before  he  knew  of  Spinoza's  system,  and  when  he 
did  know  it,  spurned  it  and  sought  to  steer  away  from  it, 
he  drifted  as  before.  Malebranche's  course  was  marked  out 
for  him  in  the  principles  he  started  from.  So  was  Spinoza's. 
But  the  latter  took  it  with  such  a  will  that  he  swiftly  explored* 
all  that  it  led  to — explored  and  died  while  Malebranche  still 
was  young.  Even  the  next  great  thinker,  Leibniz,  forced 
by  Spinoza  into  a  new  track,  had  time  to  live  and  shape 
the  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century,  before  Malebranche 
died.  So  much  is  Malebranche  outside  the  main  course 
of  European  thought — so  strongly  did  that  current  set  from 
Descartes  to  Leibniz  through  Spinoza. 

Baruch  (Benedict)  de  Spinoza  (or  Despinoza)  was  born 
at  Amsterdam,  in  1632,  of  a  Jewish  family,  emigrants  from 
Portugal  directly,  but  probably  of  Spanish  origin,  which  had 
emigrated  on  account  of  the  Inquisition.  His  principal  teacher 
was  the  famous  Talmudist,  Rabbi  Morteira,  a  philosopher 
after  the  Jewish-Scholastic  manner  of  Maimonides  (1135- 
1204).  In  the  translations  of  his  works  named  above  his 
biography  is  given  \  Persecuted  in  his  lifetime  and  an 
object  of  the  fiercest  hate  long  after  his  death,  he  has 
within  the  last  century,  through  Jacobi,  Goethe,  Schleier- 
macher  and  others,  had  justice  done  to  the  singular  purity 
and  nobleness  of  his  solitary  life,  and  perhaps  rather  more 
1  The  Bohn  Translation  dates  his  birth  wrongly. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  277 

than  justice  done  to  the  philosophic  value  of  his  unique 
and  imposing  doctiine. 

The  extent  to  which  Cartesianism  was  the  moulding 
influence  on  that  doctrine  is  a  point  on  which  there  has 
been  much  discussion.  On  the  one  hand,  to  Spinoza's 
devotees — Dutch  and  Jewish  investigators — his  work  appears 
not  only  one  of  the  most  remarkable,  but  the  most  remark- 
able achievement  of  the  human  mind.  To  them  his  philo- 
sophy is  the  crowning  result  of  philosophic  thought  never 
to  be  surpassed.  Their  ecstatic  admiration  would  not  allow 
that  the  accident  of  Descartes'  existence  could  have  in- 
fluenced him  very  greatly,  and  that  he  merely  received  the 
torch  and  handed  it  on  to  others.  As  if  to  atone  for  their 
forefathers'  ill-treatment  of  him,  many  Jews  within  the  last 
twenty  years  are  proud  to  claim  the  great  thinker  as  one 
of  themselves.  Sir  F.  Pollock,  on  the  other  hand,  and  Kuno 
Fischer  exaggerate  the  influence  of  Descartes,  the  former 
asserting,  not  without  reason,  that  the  view  which  minimises 
it  springs  out  of  an  insufficient  study  of  Descartes'  works 
in  relation  to  those  of  Spinoza.  The  difference  of  view  is 
due  in  p.trt  also  to  the  different  value  attached  to  Spinoza's 
philosophy  as  a  whole x. 

Dr.  Joel  and  others2  try  to  prove  that  Spinoza  got  his 
ideas  not  from  Descartes  but  from  his  own  people,  especially 
from  Maimonides  and  Crescas  (fl.  about  1400). 

Spinoza  often  mentions  Maimonides,  but  not  in  the  Ethica. 
Maimonides  was  the  greatest  Jewish  thinker  of  the  Middle 

1  The  controversy  may  be  followed  best  in  Professor  Sorley's 
excellent  article  '  Jewish  Mediaeval  Philosophy  and  Spinoza,'  Mind, 
1880. 

2  Cf.  Professor  K.  Pearson's  article,  'Maimonides  and  Spinoza,' 
Mind.  vi. 


278  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [i,ect. 

Ages.  He  did  for  the  Jewish  faith  what  was  done  by 
Arabian  philosophers  for  Mohammedanism,  and  by  School- 
men like  Aquinas  for  Christianity.  Arabian,  Jewish,  and 
Christian  thinkers  were  guided  by  the  same  principle,  namely, 
that  of  rationalising  religion,  of  harmonising  it  with  philo- 
sophy. We  do  find  traces  of  Jewish  habits  of  thought  in 
Spinoza,  but  no  ground  for  asserting  that  there  is  in  him 
any  idea  which,  being  a  Jew,  he  could  not  have  got  without 
Maimonides. 

Crescas  headed  the  reaction  against  Maimonides,  as 
William  of  Ockham  did  against  Aquinas,  holding  that  faith 
could  not  be  rationalised,  could  not  be  expressed  in  terms, 
of  philosophy,  but  was  there  to  be  accepted  intact.  He 
denied  the  freedom  of  human  will,  affirming  the  necessity  of 
human  action.  So  did  Spinoza,  more  than  any  one,  unless 
we  except  Hobbes.  But  it  is  a  long  step  to  say  that  he 
got  this  from  Crescas.  I  do  not,  I  say,  find  anything  in 
Spinoza  which  cannot  be  expressed  by  the  fact  that  all 
three  were  Jews. 

Spinoza  was  an  original  thinker  if  ever  there  was  one, 
but  he  would  not  have  thought  as  he  did  if  Descartes 
had  not  thought  before  him.  I  do  not  deny  the  Jewish 
influence  generally,  but  I  hold  that  Spinoza  is  a  logical 
development  of  Descartes. 

Again,  I  can  say  no  more  for  the  alleged  influence  on 
Spinoza  of  Giordano  Bruno 1 ;  there  is  no  real  ground  for 
connecting  them.  But  I  do  believe  that  Spinoza  was  far 
better  informed  in  Christian  Scholastic  philosophy  than  is 
supposed.  Spinoza's  was  no  such  wild-flower  intellect. 
Modern  philosophy,  remember,  was  fighting  its  way  into 
existence,   and  Scholastic  philosophy,  in   resisting  it,   was 

1  Cf.  Erdmann,  II,  §  272.  1. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  279 

itself  vigorously  issuing  new  text-books.  Do  not  assume 
that  Scholasticism  had  perished  by  1700;  it  then  held  all 
the  Universities ;  all  the  Catholic  Universities  it  still  holds, 
and  it  has  in  our  day  experienced  a  vigorous  effective  revival. 

Spinoza  certainly  took  up  the  problems  that  Descartes 
had  left,  and  solved  them  to  all  intents  and  purposes  in 
Cartesian  terms,  as  he  would  not  have  done  unless  Descartes' 
results  and  methods  had  been  there.  If  however  Spinoza 
ever  was  a  Cartesian,  he  consciously  broke  away  from 
Descartes  and  made  his  fame  thereby.  His  first  work  which 
appeared  in  1663,  on  Descartes'  Principia  geometrically 
expounded,  gave  evidence  at  once  of  his  dependence  and 
his  independence.  But  how  far  he  was  a  Cartesian  is  best 
seen  in  the  work  of  Arnauld,  Geulincx,  and  Malebranche, 
who,  professing  themselves  disciples  of  Descartes,  and 
shrinking  in  horror  from  Spinoza's  views,  were  hardly  able 
to  avoid  coming  to  his  conclusions.  Spinoza  ended  by 
opposing  Descartes,  but  he  did  so  under  Cartesian  influence. 

The  relation  of  Spinoza  to  Descartes,  as  far  as  concerns 
the  special  difficulties  arising  from  the  dualism  of  Thought 
and  Extension,  has  been  already  indicated.  The  difficulty 
as  between  God  and  the  World  Spinoza  gets  rid  of  by 
giving  up  the  world — by  denying  to  it  any  substantial 
character  of  its  own,  by  making  it,  in  all  its  variety,  a  mere 
mode  of  the  Divine  Existence,  to  which  it  never  can  assume 
an  attitude  of  opposition.  The  difficulty  as  between  Mind 
and  Body  he  gets  rid  of  by  denying  the  substantial  character 
of  both,  and  allowing  them  only  a  modal  opposition : — 
Mind  is  not  Body,  an  Idea  is  not  an  Extended  thing;  they 
are  opposed  so  as  that  the  one  never  can  be  the  other ; 
but  they  are  not  only  opposed,  for  they  are  united  and 
held  together  in  their  mutual  opposition,  being  only  modes — 


280  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

passing  modes — of  the  one  great  Substance  underlying 
them  and  all.  Such  opposition  thus  overcome  means  mutual 
correspondence,  and  here  Spinoza  must  be  called  Occa- 
sionalist — Occasionalist  at  least  as  to  the  bond  between 
the  mental  mode  and  the  bodily  mode,  if  not  as  to  the 
bond  between  links  in  the  mental  chain  and  between  links 
in  the  bodily  chain.  But  it  is  not  the  Occasionalism  of 
Geuiincx  and  Malebranche  with  the  problem— how  do 
diverse  substances  come  to  be  related  ? — and  with  the  solu- 
tion of  a  personal  Deity  intervening.  The  correspondence 
for  Spinoza  is  Law  of  Nature,  and  his  problem  is — Given 
one  substance,  whence  comes  all  the  variety  in  Nature  ?  * 

Such  is  the  special  relation  between  Descartes  and  Spinoza, 
but  this  far  from  exhausts  the  connexion  between  the  two, 
as  might  be  said  of  Descartes  and  Geuiincx  or  Malebranche. 
Spinoza  is  so  much  the  greater  figure  than  either  of  them 
that  the  connexion  is  more  worthy  of  being  established. 
And  he  so  distinctly  by  his  originality  stands  between  the 
next  great  figure,  Leibniz,  and  Descartes,  that  his  own 
dependence  upon  the  inaugurator  of  modern  speculation 
requires  to  be  more  fully  set  forth. 

I  find  it  in  three  particulars:— (i)  in  the  prominence 
given  to  the  notion  of  Substance,  (2)  in  the  idea  of  mathe- 
matical method  to  be  applied  to  philosophy,  and  (3)  in  the 
exclusion  of  Final  Causes  from  human  science.  All  three 
particulars  are  characteristic  elements  of  Descartes'  thought. 
In  Spinoza's  they  are  derived  from  Descartes;  only  they 
are  so  transformed  by  the  original  power  of  the  man  that 
they  come  to  be  more  strictly  characteristic  of  his  own. 

(1)  Whoso  places  this  notion  of  Substance  in  the  front 
of  his  thought  stamps  its  character  once  and  finally.  He 
is  a  speculative  Dogmatist.     He  speculates  upon  and  with 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  281 

the  knowledge  he  has,  instead  of  making  it  his  first  object, 
with  Locke  and  others  of  the  psychological  school,  to  inquire 
how  he  came  by  that  knowledge.  He  dogmatises  upon 
things  within  and  beyond  experience  with  a  perfect  con- 
fidence in  the  ability  of  the  human  mind,  instead  of  making 
it  his  first  object,  with  Kant  and  the  Critical  school,  and 
with  the  psychological  school  again,  to  inquire  into  the 
limits  and  the  scope  of  the  mind's  power.  Such  a  specu- 
lative Dogmatist  was  Descartes.  But  Spinoza  was  doubly 
so.  Descartes,  though  he  quickly  enough  dogmatised,  had  at 
least  his  preliminary  doubt.  Spinoza  had  none.  Descartes, 
though  he  speculated  freely  enough  as  to  the  hidden  nature 
of  things,  at  least  tried  to  recognise  what  he  found,  and 
fell  into  his  inconsistencies  because  he  would  labour  to 
reconcile  undoubted  facts  and  natural  experience  with  his 
speculation.  Spinoza  speculated  with  a  perfect  disregard 
of  natural  experience,  and,  because  he  would  not  stoop 
to  any  such  accommodation,  appears  less  inconsistent  with 
himself. 

The  pantheistic  element  in  Descartes'  thought,  viz.  the 
tendency  to  conceive  the  notion  of  substance  in  the  truest 
sense  as  being  only  One,  and  ihe  naturalistic  element,  viz. 
the  tendency  to  conceive  the  One  Substance  or  God  as 
Order  of  Nature,  were  brought  together  and  set  in  the 
front  of  Spinoza's  thought  as  the  mother-idea  of  it  all. 
For  this  his  thought  must,  as  I  have  said,  be  regarded  as 
the  necessary  logical  development  of  the  Cartesian  system, 
as  the  last  word  that  can  and  must  be  said  about  the 
universe  upon  Cartesian  principles.  And  the  rigid  manner 
of  the  development,  the  spirit  of  philosophic  calm  in  which 
that  last  word  is  uttered,  are  such — are,  in  spite  of  all 
criticism,  which  touches  the  conception  far  more  than  the 


282  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

execution,  such — that  Spinoza's  philosophy  remains  as  yet, 
and  is  likely  to  remain,  the  very  type  of  a  Naturalistic 
Pantheism. 

Spinoza  also  inherits  from  Descartes  the  notions  of 
'  attribute '  and  '  mode.' 

Now,  for  Spinoza,  mode  gets  into  a  direct  relation  with 
substance,  as  it  does  not  for  Descartes.  For  the  latter 
modes  are  not  things,  while  for  the  former  they  are  the 
only  explanation  of  res  particulares,  being  the  way  in  which 
the  one  substance  expresses  itself.  Mode  in  Descartes  is 
attribute  specialised  in  a  certain  way,  and  is  understood 
quite  apart  from  the  question  of  substantiality.  That  he, 
had  settled  at  the  beginning  by  positing  infinite  substance 
and  finite  substance.  Spinoza  could  not  quite  so  easily 
accept  Descartes'  compromise.  The  business  of  philosophy 
being  to  account  for  our  experience,  i.e.  for  particular 
things,  and  Spinoza  having  undertaken  to  do  so  by  Monism, 
he  had  to  eliminate  from  '  mode '  the  notion  of  substantiality. 
No  less  has  he  to  account  for  '  attributes,'  such  as  thought, 
extension,  &c.  How  far  he  has  consistently  fitted  both 
terms  into  his  system  is  a  much  controverted  point1.  To 
me  it  seems  that  he  is  not  without  inconsistencies  to  answer 
for  in  his  usage  of  the  terms,  going,  in  language  at  least, 
straight  from  substance  to  mode  (cf.  Eih.  I.  Def.  iv.  and 
Props,  iv.2  and  vi.  Proof),  and  yet  no  less  referring  modes 
to  attributes  (cf.  I.  Prop.  xxv.  Cor.)  His  inconsistencies 
show  (i)  that  he  had  not  quite  made  up  his  mind  in  this 

1  See  especially  Martineau's  Spinoza  and  Kuno  Fischer's  and 
Erdmann's  Histories  of  Philosophy  on  this  point.  The  lecturer  (in 
1891)  entered  in  detail  into  the  controversy,  but  space  prevents  me 
from  reproducing.— Ed. 

3  Do  not  take  Spinoza  too  strictly  here  in  his  use  of '  substance '  in 
the  plural. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  283 

connexion,  (ii)  that  he  felt  the  difficulties  entailed  by  holding 
on  to  Descartes  while  being  determined  to  arrive  at  a 
different  conclusion,  (iii)  that  he  felt  the  difficulties  inherent 
in  Substantialism — difficullies  which,  in  becoming  by  a  later 
age  fully  realised,  have  altered  the  position  of  philosophy 
concerning  that  which  was  the  ultimate  viciousness  in  the 
attitude  of  the  age. 

(2)  The  method  of  mathematics  is  not  the  only  speculative 
method  in  philosophy,  but  it  is  a  speculative  method.  A 
thinker  may  reject  it,  like  Hegel  for  his  dialectic  method, 
and  still  be  intensely  speculative,  but  the  thinker  must 
also  be  intensely  speculative  who  accepts  it :  for  the  use 
of  it  commits  him  to  the  assertion  that  resort  to  specific 
experience  is  as  unnecessary  in  metaphysics  as  in  mathe- 
matics, that  the  most  general  truth  about  the  nature  of 
all  things  is  already  as  well  ascertained,  or  as  ascertainable 
and  ready  to  be  formulated  and  fit  to  be  applied  in  new 
cases,  as  the  most  general  truth  about  number  and  form. 
A  bold  assertion !  It  was  however  a  very  common  assertion 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  one  that  men  might  be 
excu?ed  for  at  least  desiring  to  be  able  to  make.  The 
certainty  of  mathematical  truth,  which  Schoolmen  had  con- 
cerned themselves  so  little  about,  and  the  uncertainty  of 
philosophical  truth,  which  Schoolmen  had  been  working 
at  for  centuries,  could  not  fail  to  appear  in  somewhat  dis- 
agreeable contrast,  and  the  contrast  in  turn  to  excite  bound- 
less hopes  if  the  method  that  led  to  uncertainty  and  dispute 
might  be  changed  for  the  method  that  ended  in  certitude 
and  unanimity.  That  the  contract  should  particularly  strike 
and  excite  a  born  mathematical  genius  like  Descartes — the 
first  great  mathematician  since  the  Arabians — was  only 
natural.     It  led  him  to  what  we  know   and  have   seen: — 


284  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.       [Lect. 

the  method  of  science  is  one,  and  is  to  be  drawn  and 
generalised  from  mathematics;  is  deductive  from  certain 
and  fixed  principles ;  passes  from  causes  to  effects ;  dis- 
plays a  must-be  of  things ;  works  so  certainly  from  principles 
so  large  that  the  only  difficulty  is  in  selecting  from  among 
the  •  infinity  of  possible  effects '  those  that  correspond  with 
the  actual  things  and  facts  of  this  poor  universe.  Descartes 
has  all  this,  and  it  is  not  little ;  but  his  mathematic  is 
implicit ;  he  does  not  go  farther — not  even  in  his  systematic 
work — to  evolve  the  results  from  his  principles  in  regular 
geometrical  form  (except  when  expressly  challenged  in  the 
'  Objections').  That  was  left  to  Spinoza.  Definitions, 
Axioms,  Theorems,  Lemmas,  Corollaries — Spinoza  adopts 
the  whole  machinery — adopts  or  tries  to  adopt,  and  believes 
he  sustains  the  whole  responsibility  of  it.  Descartes'  practical 
departure  from  mathematical  method  and  the  abrupt  collapse 
of  his  project  in  the  Regies  (never,  though  he  had  plenty 
of  time,  resumed),  are  explicable  from  his  very  mathematical 
power,  or  at  least  from  his  tact  or  common  sense ;  he  saw 
that  the  thing  could  not  in  fact,  or  should  not,  be  done. 
Spinoza  was  kept  back  from  attempt  and  achievement  by 
no  such  superiority  of  scientific  ability.  And  as  an  inferior 
mathematician  he  was  pedantic  in  his  use  of  the  method. 
Leibniz,  the  next  great  mathematician  and  philosopher  after 
Descartes,  found  fault  after  fault  in  Spinoza. 

Spinoza  however  was  so  thoroughly  a  Dogmatist  that 
he  could  not  but  work  by  this  method.  Kant  rightly  dis- 
cerned that  the  dogmatist  cannot  proceed  in  philosophy 
by  any   other   method l.     With   him,    as   with   the   mathe- 

1  V.  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason  (Max  Mailer's  translation^,  pp.  6ro  633: 
'  On  the  Discipline  of  Pure  Reason  in  the  Sphere  of  Dogmatism.' 
Students  were  emphatically  referred  to  this  passage. — Ed. 


xxv.]        Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  285 

matician,  first  not'ons  are  given,  not  sought.  The  essence 
of  Dogmatism  is  to  be  prepared  from  the  first  with  an 
equation  between  thought  and  reality.  If  the  day  comes 
when  we  do  discern  the  riddle  of  the  universe  and  there 
is  nothing  more  to  know,  then  the  method  of  setting  it 
forth  will  be  the  mathematical  method  of  philosophy.  But 
I  venture  to  predict  that  its  matter  and  conclusions  will  be 
very  different  from  Spinoza's.  For  us,  working  where  we 
now  stand,  I  have  nothing  but  the  strongest  disapproval  of 
the  use  of  mathematics  in  philosophy. 

For  consider : — how  is  it  that  in  geometry  we  are  able 
to  proceed  from  fixed  principles  to  propositions  that  are 
necessary  ?  Because  we  are  here  dealing  with  matter  that 
we  make,  control,  constitute.  But  this  does  not  make  the 
method  valid  in  regard  to  nature.  If  it  is  applicable  and 
in  so  far  as  it  is  applicable  to  nature,  it  is  because  all  our 
sensations  are,  more  or  less,  ordered  in  space.  If  then 
we  can  make  out  anything  with  regard  to  space,  we  can 
apply  it  to  nature  generally. 

We  perceive  space  by  activity  put  forth.  We  make 
space  in  the  knowing  of  it.  We  know  it  in  the  making 
of  it.  If  this  is  the  proper  explanation  of  the  mathematical 
method,  the  only  question  to  be  asked  is,  are  we  in  philo- 
sophy occupied  in  the  same  way  ?  Philosophy  is  the  ultimate 
interpretation  of  experience.  Is  experience  something  that 
we  make  in  the  way  that  we  make  space  ? 

Now  experience  is  not  something  that  we  simply  receive. 
It  is  in  a  manner,  as  Kant  taught,  a  construction  of  ours. 
Our  thoughts  about  things  are  our  mental  activity  func- 
tioning in  various  ways.  But  there  is  a  difference.  Activity 
is  involved  in  thinking,  and  therefore  in  experience.  But 
there  is  also  an  element  in  experience  that  is  given.     That 


286  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

element  may  be  greater  or  less,  but  experience  is  in  any 
case  reproductive  and  representative.  We  have  to  wait  for 
■what  comes  to  us  before  we  can  know.  In  metaphysic 
therefore,  as  in  physical  science,  definitions  are  statements  of 
results  arrived  at,  and  not  principles  proceeded  from.  Our 
metaphysical  notions — cause,  substance,  &c. — continually 
change  as  mathematical  notions  do  not.  And  our  notions 
of  substance  have  changed  since  Spinoza.  Hence  he  has 
not,  as  he  implies,  solved  the  riddle  of  the  universe  for  all 
time.  He  meant  to  be  strict,  honest,  exact,  but  he  attempts 
the  impossible.  His  work  is  a  model  of  what  can  and  of 
what  cannot  be  done  on  these  lines.  . 


LECTURE   XXVI. 

on  cartesianism   {continued). 

(3)  From  the  mathematical  method,  adopted  by  Descartes 
and  his  followers  in  the  peculiar  scientific  conditions  of  the 
time,  the  exclusion  of  so-called  Final  Causes — of  Aims  or 
Ends — necessarily  followed.  A  Schoolman,  more  theologian 
than  philosopher,  may  read  all  great  things  in  the  world 
according  to  some  religious  idea  of  a  divine  purpose,  and 
in  his  ignorance  of  natural  causes  may  pretend  to  a  science 
of  smaller  things  in  vain  general  statements  about  the  ends 
that  things  serve.  A  thinker  like  Aristotle,  casting  the  first 
scientific  glance  over  the  multiplicity  of  nature,  may  less 
vainly  eke  out  his  explanation  in  such  a  way ;  or  labouring 
to  comprehend  in  magnificent,  if  premature  abstraction  the 
first  principles  of  being,  may  credit  nature  with  an  immanent 
rtXos,  or  End,  of  which  all  motion  and  mutation  is  the  slow 
accomplishment.  A  thinker  like  Kant,  seeing  nothing  in  the 
realm  of  nature  but  a  vast  complex  of  phenomena  linked  each 
to  each  by  the  iron  chains  of  cause  and  effect  forged  within 
the  mind,  may  look  beyond  to  a  region  of  supra-sensible 
noiimena,  and  conceive  it  as  a  Realm  of  Ends  to  get  free 
play  for  that  power  of  self-determination  in  moral  beings 
which  he  will  not  resign. 

But  in  proportion  as  any  thinker  takes  the  mathematical 
analogy  and  follows  it  out  consistently  in  the  whole  field 


288  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

of  knowledge,  or  of  assumption,  he  must  submerge  the 
teleological  view.  It  is  not  as  the  means  to  any  end  that 
the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  .ingles ; 
the  triangle,  we  say,  '  makes '  them  so  (and  makes  them  so 
with  a  causation  which  anybody  might  call  universal  and 
necessary),  but  no  purpose  is  served,  no  aim  thereby  pro- 
moted. This  Descartes  did  not  fail  to  see,  and  the  idea 
guided  much  of  his  scientific  action,  guiding  it  well  in 
physics  away  from  the  emptiness  of  Scholastic  explanation. 
Spinoza  saw  it,  and  the  idea  guided  his  every  thought  as  it 
never  guided  the  thought  of  mortal  man  before  or  since. 

The  point  is  so  important,  so  specially  significant,  as  to 
require  a  more  particular  handling.  Descartes'  rejection  of 
final  causes  is  but  partial  compared  with  Spinoza's.  It  lies 
to  hand  to  connect  this  with  his  less  rigid  employment  of 
the  deductive  (geometrical)  method.  The  main  idea  of  the 
method  Descartes  doubtless  has,  but,  beginning  his  meta- 
physics with  a  datum  of  the  mature  consciousness,  and 
evolving  from  it  and  with  it  whatever  it  will  give,  he  cannot 
be  said  to  apply  the  method  with  any  strictness  at  the  first 
stage  of  his  speculation.  This  he  does  rather  in  his  Physics 
only.  With  his  metaphysical  notion  of  Body  or  Matter  as 
extended  and  nothing  more,  and  his  assumption  that  all 
mutation,  real  or  phenomenal,  is  mechanical,  he  does  then 
rigidly  enough  proceed  to  construct  and  explain  from  fixed 
principles.  Now  it  is  precisely  at  this  stage  that  he  makes 
exclusion  of  final  causes  *,  and  the  exclusion,  while  it  con- 
stitutes his  advance  upon  those  who  went  before,  struck 
a  right  note  for  those  who  came  after  him  in  the  history 
of  science.  But  while  the  exclusion  is  limited — for,  as  we 
know,  it  is  not  by  him  extended  in  any  sense  to  the  greater 
1  Read  Principia,  iii  §§  1-3. 


xxvl]      Elements  of  General  Philo  ophy.  289 

world  of  mind,  every  mind  according  to  him  being  absolutely 
self  determinant,  and  thought  not  being  bound  by  a  law 
of  cause  and  effect — it  is  at  the  same  time  put  upon  grounds 
that  betray  a  manifest  unsteadiness  of  vision.  Not  because 
final  causes  would  be  unwarrantably  foisted  in  by  the  mind 
upon  a  scene  of  mere  mechanical  action  and  reaction  (as 
even  Kant  who  accepts  them  elsewhere  declared),  but  only 
because  it  is  too  great  presumption  for  a  human  mind  to 
measure  the  universe  by  human  needs,  or  try  to  fathom  the 
purposes  of  the  Deity,  does  Descartes  enter  his  protest 
against  a  teleological  physics.  That  is  a  view,  no  doubt,  but 
not  the  view  (still  less  favourable  to  final  causes),  that 
depends  upon  the  adoption  of  a  peculiar  method  in  philo- 
sophy. If  we  will  see  the  method  strictly  adopted,  and  with 
singleness  of  mind  carried  out  to  its  last  conclusion  in  the 
direction  we  are  now  considering,  we  must  look  beyond 
Descartes  to  Spinoza. 

Spinoza  clearly  is  held  back  by  no  mental  preoccupation 
from  following  wheresoever  his  method  of  philosophical  in- 
quiry leads  him.  If  God  and  Nature  to  him  are  one,  and  if 
Nature  is  best  exhibited  as  a  system  in  which  from  the  core 
outwards  everything  is  as  it  cannot  but  be,  he  will  not,  like 
a  Schoolman,  embark  on  the  search  for  divine  ends,  or, 
like  Descartes,  draw  back  from  the  search  only  because  it  is 
too  high  for  man  *.  Nor,  like  Descartes  again,  can  he  allow 
any  such  difference  between  Mind  and  Body  as  would  require 
the  assumption  of  a  different  scientific  procedure.  Mind 
and  Body  are  for  him  perfectly  distinct.  Not  Descartes  with 
his  two  opposed  substances  could  draw  the  dividing  line 
more  strictly  and  hold  it  more  unfailingly  than  does  Spinoza, 
wiih  his  opposed  attributes  of  Thought  and  Extension,  pre- 
1  Read  Ethi^a.  i.  Appendix. 
U 


290  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

serving  their  opposition  into  the  most  transient  mode  of 
each.  But,  opposed  as  they  are,  they,  at  every  stage,  high 
and  low,  are  in  correspondence.  No  mode  of  Thought 
without  its  parallel  mode  of  Extension  ;  no  fact  of  body 
unaccompanied  by  some  mode  of  thought  (Eth.  iii.  2.  Schol.) ; 
and  where  there  are  two  chains,  in  which  link  answers  to 
link,  although  they  are  two,  the  links  of  the  one  for  itself 
hold  as  rigidly  together  as  the  links  of  the  other,  because 
each  is  a  chain.  Thoughts  in  nature  being  thus  not  less 
bound  together  and  mutually  conditioned  amongst  themselves 
than  are  things,  the  necessities  of  science  are  in  each  case 
alike.  A  body  in  motion  moves  another,  and  the  law  of 
the  movement,  not  the  end  or  object  of  it,  is  the  physical 
science  of  the  case.  A  thought  begets  a  thought,  and 
not  any  free  initiative  of  a  mind  creating  its  own  purpose 
should  be  assumed,  but  the  law  of  the  production  is  all 
that  should  be  sought. 

Now  Descartes,  where  he  negatives  Final  Causes,  namely, 
in  his  physical  science,  puts  forward  Efficient  Causes ;  and 
this  constitutes  the  great  merit  of  it.  Everywhere  indeed  in 
his  philosophy,  metaphysical  as  well  as  physical,  this  notion 
of  Cause,  meaning  Efficient  Cause,  stands  forward;  and  to 
him  it  is  greatly  due  that  in  modern  times  we  have  so  far 
left  behind  that  vague  Aristotelian  notion  of  Cause,  covering 
the  four  principles  of  things : — Material,  Formal,  Efficient 
or  Movent,  and  Final — as  to  have  come  to  associate  the 
notion  exclusively  with  the  Efficient  principle ;  and  this  not 
only  in  all  science,  but  even  in  philosophical  discussions 
about  Causation  (where,  as  in  Hume,  Hamilton,  &c,  the 
question  is  as  to  there  being  any  potency  and  virtus, 
or  only  mere  antecedents  of  a  certain  kind,  in  the  cause 
which  is  efficient).     The  notion  of  Efficient  Cause,  embodied 


xxvi.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  291 

in  the  Ex  nihilo,  &c,  is  what  carries  Descartes,  at  his  meta- 
physical stage,  over  the  otherwise  impassable  gulf  fixed  by 
himself  between  his  self-consciousness  and  objective  reality ; 
and  his  whole  physical  philosophy  consists  in  nothing  else 
but  the  attempt  to  show  that  everything  in  nature  results 
from  mechanical  interaction  of  bodies — bodies  in  their 
character  of  being  extended,  taking  and  giving  amongst 
themselves  the  unchanging  quantum  of  movement  once  com- 
municated to  them  by  the  Creator.  So  that,  notwithstanding 
his  references  to  mathematical  method  and  the  deductive 
cast  of  his  intellect,  Descartes'  philosophical  explanation  is 
seldom  a  mere  manipulation  and  explication  of  notions  and 
abstract  principles  assumed. 

But  such  it  ought  to  be,  if  the  full  responsibility  of  the 
method  is  accepted ;  and  such  Spinoza  aims  at  being. 

For,  as  to  the  first  point,  it  should  be  remarked,  beyond 
what  has  already  been  said,  that  Final  Causes  are  not  more 
excluded  from  mathematical  truth  than  is  the  notion  of 
Efficient  Causation.  When,  to  use  the  former  example,  the 
triangle  is  said  to  make  its  angles  equal  to  two  right  angles, 
it  makes  them  in  any  properly  causative  sense  as  little  as 
it  makes  them  for  any  end  or  purpose.  Even  those  who 
recognise  a  necessity  of  connexion  between  cause  and  effect 
will  not,  if  like  Kant  they  are  wise,  confound  it  with  necessity 
of  implication.  The  equality  of  the  angles  to  two  right 
angles  follows  from  triangular  nature  quite  otherwise  than 
it  follows  that  a  body  if  let  go  will  fall  to  the  ground.  What 
ie  contained  in  a  notion  follows  from  the  notion,  and  comes 
within  the  mind's  ken  in  one  way ;  a  thing  that  is  caused  in 
nature  by  another  thing  follows  upon  this,  and  is  apprehended 
by  the  mind  as  following,  in  another  way.  A  system  of 
philosophy,  if  conceived  and  worked   out   on  mathematical 


292  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect 

principles,  will  deal  in  notional  connexions,  not  in  causal 
relations.  But  if  this  could  ever  be  said  of  a  philosophic 
system,  it  is  to  be  said  of  Spinoza's. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  Spinoza  speaks  often 
enough  of  cause,  and  even  has  the  phrase  causa  efficiens; 
but  where  he  speaks  of  efficient  cause  : — '  Deum  omnium 
rerum  esse  causam  efficientem '  {Eih.  I.  1 6) — it  is  made 
clear  that  the  efficiency  is  only  inclusion  in  the  definition, 
conclusion  from  the  definition  and,  immediately  afterwards 
(I.  1 8),  that  the  cause  is  immanent  and  in  no  sense  transient; 
whilst  in  speaking  of  cause  simply,  he  either,  if  it  is  of  modes, 
means  it  in  a  sense  not  ultimate,  or  when  the  sense  is  ultimate", 
means  precisely  this  implication  of  all  in  the  idea  of  the  one 
Substance. 

For  Spinoza  is  pre-eminently  the  demonstrative  thinker. 
He  believes,  if  ever  man  did,  and  far  more  than  Descartes 
ever  did,  that  he  has  grasped  the  inner  secret  of  the  universe 
and  can  lay  bare  in  the  orderly  evolution  of  thought  the 
meaning  of  all  that  is.  The  demonstration  he  himself 
supposes  to  rest  upon  a  few  truths  perfectly  self-evident — 
at  least  when  he  sets  them  forth,  for  no  man  before  him 
had  the  same  insight  into  them — and  to  be  the  most  irre- 
fragable, clear,  and  final  exposition  of  the  whole  system 
of  things.  Another  might  say  that  the  principles  upon 
which  the  demonstration  is  supposed  to  rest  are  neither 
truths  nor  at  all  self-evident,  but  only  a  rash,  though  striking 
abstraction  from  experience,  and  that  the  demonstration 
itself  halts  and  is  insufficient,  or  at  the  best  is  eked  out  by 
sidelong  glances  at  the  actual.  But  demonstration,  and 
strict  demonstration,  is  nevertheless  what  Spinoza  aims  at 
and  believes  he  has  achieved. 

Here  then  we  touch  the  true  difference  between  Descartes 


xxvi.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  293 

and  Spinoza,  and  can  apprehend  the  speculative  stride  taken 
by  the  younger  thinker.  It  is  not  only  that  where  the  one 
gets  rid  of  final  causes  in  physical  science,  and  upon  grounds 
that  may  be  called  theological,  the  other  bans  them  utterly 
from  the  universe  upon  the  ground  of  strict  philosophical 
principle,  but  it  is  that  whereas  Descartes  deduces  and 
constructs  with  a  principle  of  Efficient  Causation,  Spinoza 
rejects,  or  tends  to  reject,  also  the  notion  of  Efficient  Cause, 
and,  with  perfect  consistency,  resolves,  or  fain  would  resolve, 
everything  upon  a  principle  of  Necessity  of  Implication. 

A  word  finally  on  Spinoza's  psychology  and  epistemology. 
The  latter  is  a  very  remarkable  doctrine  and  very  closely 
interwoven  wilh  his  psychology  and  his  metaphysic  of  mind 
and  body,  but  always  with  an  explicit  ethical  object  (Elh.  II. 
Pref.)  In  Parts  I  and  II  of  the  Eihica  he  is  laying  the 
foundations  and  preparing  the  materials  for  his  doctrine  of 
how  man  may  be  ethically  perfect. 

Special  note  should  be  taken  of  the  seventh  proposition, 
Part  II 1 — a  metaphysical  assertion  on  which  all  his  psycho- 
logical observation  is  based.  It  is  the  first  explicit  utterance 
of  the  later  doctrine  of  Parallelism.  This  is  now  always 
purely  phenomenal  in  assertion  2,  serving  the  purposes  of 
psychological  science  without  prejudicing  ultimate  hypotheses, 
being  held  by  Dualists  no  less  than  by  Monists  of  to-day. 
The  doctrine  of  the  latter  both  in  its  phenomenal  and  meta- 
physical aspects  has  great  affinity  with  that  of  Spinoza,  but 
hr.s  been  got  at  differently,  viz.  by  induction.  The  common 
result  has    brought   Spinoza  into   vogue,  so    much   so    that 

1  '  The  order  and  connexion  of  ideas  is  the  same  as  the  order  and 
connexion  of  things.' 

2  Thus:— 'With  every  psychosis  is  concomitant  a  neurosis.' 
{Elements  of  Psychology.  Lect.  VI.) — Ed. 


294  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

younger  students  need  to  be  reminded  that  it  is  only  lately 
he  has  been  seriously  considered  as  a  thinker.  Spinoza 
starts  as  a  dogmatic  metaphysician,  thinking  that  by  his 
definition  of  substance  he  can  account  for  mind  and  body  as 
they  appear.  In  the  end  he  practically  abandons  his  first 
position  and  writes  as  a  Phenomenalist.  Law  of  Nature 
replaces  Substance.  Phenomenalism  has  got  up  to  where  he 
came  down.     His  dogmatic  Substantialism  is  overlooked. 

There  was  nothing  new  in  Spinoza's  Parallelism.  Aristotle 
was  a  Parallelist,  dogmatic  also  in  his  procedure.  Descartes 
and  the  Occasionalists  are  so  also.  Leibniz  in  his  Monadism 
was  a  Parallelist.  My  emphasis  is  due  to  the  attitude  oF 
modern  Parallelists,  who  write  as  if  they  were  first  in  the  field 
— even  inventing  the  term  Automatism — or  at  most  connecting 
themselves  with  Descartes  only.  Everything  modern  on 
body  and  mind  is  in  Spinoza  in  principle,  and  is  also  much 
more  clearly  thought  out  than  it  is  by  many,  his  detail 
being  often  remarkable,  e.  g.  when  dealing  with  Perception, 
Conception,  Memory,  &c.  Hence  Spinoza  is  in  the  front 
and  will  remain  there. 

No  part  of  him  should  be  more  studied  than  the  latter  half 
of  Pait  II  giving  his  epistemology '.  Nor  should  Part  III  be 
slurred  over,  with  its  psycho-physical  doctrine,  systematic 
beyond  anything  of  the  kind  previously  attempted.  Note  (i) 
in  the  definition  of  emotion  how  the  subjective  and  the  bodily 
side  are  both  brought  forward,  and  (ii)  that  the  forty- 
eHit  definitions  are,  as  in  all  natural  science,  statements 
of  results.  Note  also  (iii)  the  distinction  between  active 
emotions  and  passions,  these  being  a  measure,  an  indication 
of  human  bondage,  i.  e.  of  mind  as  limited,  as  confused  in  its 

1  Note  especially  Prop.  XL.  Note  II,  containing  his  expression  of 
thoroughgoing  Realism  (Platonic    and  of  Nominalism. 


xxvl]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  295 

representations  (Props.  58,  59).  By  connecting  'affect '  and 
self-consciousness  with  activity1,  he  prepares  the  way  for  his 
solution  of  the  ethical  question  in  Part  V,  where  he  trans- 
forms the  notion  of  knowledge  into  emo'ion.  Before  our 
knowledge  is  effective  for  purposes  of  life  it  must  be  '  touched 
with  emotion.'  Morality  for  Spinoza  is  knowledge  emotion- 
ally transformed.  Thus  while  he  begins  as  a  bare  formalist, 
he  ends  by  being  a  rapt  mystic.  Through  the  stiff  crust 
of  his  form  he  palpitates  with  intense  emotion  if  not  with 
passion. 

Leibniz. 

In  such  a  system  as  Spinoza's  there  was  so  much  to  shock 
the  prevailing  ideas  and  feelings  of  men,  that  those  who  were 
least  opposed  to  the  philosophic  method  of  it  were  driven 
by  its  results  to  seek  other  principles  for  their  speculation; 
and  if  Spinoza's  principles  could  be  shown  as  following 
from  Descartes',  then  other  principles  than  Descartes'.  Wiih 
thit,  however,  there  was  an  end  to  the  direct  Cartesian  in- 
fluence, an  end  to  the  Cartesian  school.  Though  the  next 
thinker  might  represent  the  same  general  direction  of 
thought,  though  he  certainly  was  stirred  up  to  think  by  the 
Cartesian  ideas,  the  conditions  had  become  so  much  changed 
that  we  have  in  him  a  new  philosophical  era.  This  era  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Leibniz. 

To  understand  all  that  wrent  to  the  making  of  Leibniz's 

1  The  emotions  are  shown  by  Spinoza  (III.  Props  59,  57  and  6)  as 
making  for  self-conservation.  In  the  more  general  statement  ;Prop.  6) 
he  gives  things  an  individuality,  a  vis  of  their  own,  which  is  not 
as  if  they  were  mere  shadowy  'modes.'  This  hangs  together  with 
his  theory  of  ntotits  et  quies  (II.  13,  Axioms  ,  which  is  interesting 
as  coming  between  Descartes'  Extension  and  the  modern  dynamic 
conception  of  things. 


296  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

thought  is  no  easy  matter.  He  was  a  man  that  united  in 
himself  so  much,  in  fact  both  ancient  and  Scholastic  thought, 
while  he  stood  in  conscious  opposition  to  the  thought  both 
of  Bacon  and  Locke.  Here  I  am  mainly  concerned  with 
his  relation  to  Spinoza  and  Descartes. 

Leibniz's  doctrine  of  substance  was  expounded  in  con- 
scious opposition  to  Spinoza's,  but  was  not  arrived  at  in 
mere  immediate  revulsion  from  the  latter,  but  as  if  Leibniz 
had  had  to  pass  through  the  stage  of  Spinoza's  doctrine,  in 
support  or  in  opposition,  before  he  could  arrive  at  his  own 
view.  Rather,  of  himself  Leibniz  was  able  to  see  that 
Descartes'  philosophy  did  indeed  lead  to  conclusions  such 
as  those  that  Spinoza  rested  in1,  and  without  Spinoza  was 
moved  to  reject  them  and  set  up  new  principles  instead. 
But  doubtless  he  was  confirmed  in  his  course  as  he  came  to 
know  Spinoza's  works. 

Like  both  Descartes  and  Spinoza  a  speculative  dogmatist, 
like  both  he  put  forward  as  the  central  idea  of  his  philosophy 
a  conception  of  substance,  but  a  conception  different  from 
either  of  theirs.  Struck  out  in  ultimate  revulsion  from 
Spinoza's  unity  of  substance,  it  was  other  than  that  con- 
ception of  Descartes  in  which  there  lay  wrapt  up  Spinoza's. 
Leibniz  saw  that  the  individual,  or  particular  substance  — 
sacrificed  wholly  by  Spinoza,  or  emerging  at  the  end  of  his 
system  in  spite  of  his  principles — that  individual  substances, 
for  that  is  the  point,  must  on  philosophical  or  other  grounds 
be   conceded;  and   that,  for  this,  substance  must  be  con- 

1  Cf.  Thcodicee,  Pt.  III.  '  Qu'on  prenne  garde  qu'en  confondant 
les  substances  avec  les  accidents  en  dtant  Taction  aux  substances 
creees  on  ne  tombe  dans  le  spinosisrae,  qui  est  un  cartesianisme 
outre.  Ce  qui  n'agit  point  ne  merite  point  le  nom  de  substance,' 
&c.     CEuvres,  ed.  Paul  Janet,  t.  i,  p.  393. 


xxvi.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  297 

ceived  so  as  not,  with  Descartes,  to  render  particular 
substances  in  the  last  resort  impossible.  The  new  philo- 
sophical era,  then,  is  Individualistic,  instead  of  Pantheistic. 

Leibniz  is  no  less  dogmatic  than  Descartes  and  Spinoza 
in  assuming  thought  to  be  fully  representative  of  reality. 
But  he  went  beyond  Descartes'  Dualism  and  Spinoza's 
Monism  in  his  Monadology,  positing  a  multiplex  gradation 
of  substances,  each  a  monad  simple,  unextended,  with 
active  force  for  its  essence.  He  starts  however  in  his 
philosophy,  first  and  last,  from  the  fact  of  Body.  The 
explanation  of  this,  or  what  is  required  for  its  explanation, 
leads  him  on  to  all  the  rest l.  More,  he  was,  among  mela~ 
physicians,  the  first  who  makes  an  approach  to  compre- 
hension of  the  vast  complexity  of  nature.  But  Body,  he 
held,  must  be  thought  as  Force.  And  Force,  as  an  indivisible 
and  so  immaterial,  simple,  original  being,  must  be  thought 
as  Substance.  Force-substance  is  ever  active,  and,  being 
the  source  of  its  own  activity,  is  a  self-active  being,  individual 
or  monad.  But  with  self-action  goes  self-distinction — ■ 
absolute  difference — and  thus  there  is  an  absolute  multi- 
plicity of  monads.  The  essence  of  an  individual  consists  in 
self-formed  peculiarity,  which  could  not  be  except  in  its 
being  distinguished  from  other  peculiar  beings. 

Every  monad,  then,  is  a  singular  substance,  an  individual 
force,  and  therefore  at  once  limited  and  independent,  passive 
force  and  active  force.  That  is  to  say,  all  substances  save  one 
are  not,  with  Leibniz,  as  with  Descartes  and  the  Occasionalists, 

1  Cf.  e.  g.  '  Le  corps  est  un  agrege  de  substances,  et  ce  n'est  pas 
une  substance  a  proprement  parler.  II  faut,  par  consequent,  que 
partout  dans  le  corps  il  se  trouve  des  substances  indivisibles. '  Lettre 
a  Arnauld  (i6go\  '  Et  il  faut,  qu'il  y  ait  des  substances  simples, 
puisqu'il  y  a  des  composees.'    Monadol.  §  2  (1714^;. 


298  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

devoid  of  true  independence,  powerless,  passive:  they  are  inde- 
pendent, active,  instinct  with  power.  They  are  not,  in  their 
dependence,  either  merely  extended  or  merely  thinking: 
their  independence,  one  and  all,  consists  in  their  being  each 
a  Force — each  a  force  for  itself,  one  among  many,  each  not 
another,  simple  and  indivisible,  a  monad. 

How  should  there  not  be  substances  many,  and  each 
indivisible,  when  there  are  substances  composite  like  bodies  ? 
How  should  the  character  of  substance  not  consist  in  being 
Force,  when  bodies  are  not  lifeless  extension,  but  quivering 
with  inherent  energies,  and  when  minds  are  forces  likewise  ? 
Passive  force  is  the  principle  of  matter,  active  force  the* 
principle  of  form.  Passive  force  manifests  itself  as  body, 
active  force  manifests  itself  as  soul.  But  soul  and  body 
(Form  and  Matter)  are  conceived  to  be  the  two  forces 
making  the  nature  of  every  body.  Every  monad  is  therefore 
an  animated  body.  Every  body  is  a  mechanical,  and  every 
soul  a  living,  being ;  and  thus  every  animated  body  is 
a  living  machine.  In  the  machine  there  are  only  motive  or 
mechanical  forces ;  the  vital  powers  are  formative  and 
work  towards  an  end.  Every  living  machine  is  therefore 
a  body  moved  according  to  ends,  or  a  system  of  purposive 
motions. 

Since  then  bodies  work  mechanically  according  to  Effi- 
cient Causation,  and  souls  work  vitally  according  to  Final 
Causation,  Leibniz,  in  the  conception  of  the  monad,  unites  the 
two  principles  of  Causality  and  Teleology  which  had  divided  all 
previous  systems.  For  final  causes  are  related  to  efficient 
causes  as  purposive  to  mechanical  force,  as  life  to  machine 
(mechanism),  as  soul  to  body,  soul  and  body  being  not 
different  beings  but  the  two  primordial  forces  of  every  monad. 
Now  as  soul  and  body  make  a  natural  unity  or  individual, 


xxvi.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  299 

there  are  not  two  distinct  worlds  of  souls  and  bodies,  but  one 
universe,  and  for  the  explanation  of  that  universe  the  teleo- 
logical  and  mechanical  principles  must  be  combined.  But 
they  are  not  for  Leibniz  combined  as  in  Spinoza's  orde 
idearum  idem  est  ac  ordo  rerum,  which  rested  upon  an 
assumption  of  causality  as  being  ihe  same  in  thought  and  in 
extension,  and  which  reduced  the  difference  of  these  in  the 
unity  of  substance.  Soul  proceeds  ideologically  only,  body 
mechanically  only;  but  soul,  for  its  own  ends,  also  infolds 
body. 

Soul  and  body,  then,  though  both  original  'moments'  in 
the  monad,  are  not  on  equal  footing :  they  remain  as  active 
and  passive  force:  they  are  as. end  and  means.  Unlike 
works  of  human  art,  however,  there  is  in  them  no  separation 
between  end  and  means  \ 

This  conception  of  force  is  in  harmony  with  the  increase 
of  physical  knowledge  at  the  end  of  the  century.  Leibniz 
as  much  as  Newton  had  got  an  idea  of  matter  as  not  barely 
extended,  with  so  much  movement  put  into  it,  as  Descartes 
had  said.  He  saw  the  necessity  of  transforming  the  con- 
cept of  matter  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view  just 
when  Newton  was  seeing  that  it  was  necessary  to  do  so  from 
the  point  of  view  of  positive  science. 

How  an  aggregate  of  simple  unextended  substances 
becomes  phenomenally  extended,  Leibniz  explains  from  the 
confused  perception  of  the  percipient  monad  or  mind. 
While  human  minds  are  self-active  monads,  bodies  are 
each  a  multiplicity  of  monads  in  reality,  only  appearing 
as   continuous   and    extended    to    the    mind    through   the 

1  '  Les  machines  de  la  nature,  c'est-a-dire  les  corps  vivants,  sont 
encore  machines  dans  leurs  moindres  parties  jusqu'a  linfini.' 
Monadol.  §  64. 


3oo  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        ["Lect. 

confusion  of  sense.  All  living  monads  have  inner  states, 
which  in  some  are  developed  as  perceptions,  representations, 
but  these  are  of  different  degrees  of  clearness  in  different 
monads.  Perceptions  are  clear  when  their  objects  are 
marked  off  from  others ;  distinct,  when  the  parts  of  the 
objects  can  be  distinguished ;  adequate,  when  this  distinctness 
extends  to  the  absolutely  simple  elements  of  the  objects. 
Human  soul  differs,  for  example,  from  animal  soul  not  only 
in  dominating  over  a  body  more  highly  organised,  but  also, 
and  this  more,  in  having  distinct  perceptions,  distinguishable 
from  one  another  and  from  the  mind  itself;  in  fact,  in  having 
reflective  consciousness,  and  being  to  itself  what  the  othe^ 
monads  are  to  the  eye  that  observes  them.  By  this  reflec- 
tive activity  the  individual  becomes  Person,  Self,  Ego  ;  the 
creature  becomes  a  member  of  the  moral  world  ;  soul  becomes 
mind ;  representation  or  perception  becomes  apperception, 
thought,  knowledge  ;  appetite  becomes  will. 

There  is  however  no  cleft  between  perception  in  animals 
and  in  men. 

The  perceptions  of  the  monad  in  part  clear  are  in  all  the 
rest  confused.  Now  '  action,'  Leibniz  said  in  the  Monadologie, 
'  is  ascribed  to  the  monad  in  as  far  as  it  has  distinct  percep- 
tions, and  passion  in  as  far  as  it  has  confused  perceptions ' 
(§  49).  Thus  for  Leibniz  the  unconscious  or  sub-conscious, 
infinitely  small  or  obscure  perceptions  out  of  which  con- 
sciousness arises,  establish  a  harmony  between  the  material 
and  the  moral  world — the  kingdom  ■  of  Nature '  and  that 
'  of  Grace  ' — for  by  conceiving  monads  as  perceptive  forces 
the  elements  of  the  material  world  are  spiritualised ;  and  on 
the  other  hand  by  its  obscure  perceptions  the  mind  is 
connected  with  the  material  world.  Thus  the  two  are 
continuous. 


xxvi.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  301 

This  obscure  side  of  the  soul,  moreover  (like  the  passive 
moment  in  the  human  soul-monad),  is  the  ground  of  all 
individuality — what  Leibniz  calls  the  'je  ne  scais  quoi' — 
whereby  each  is  naturally  determined  to  a  special  line. 

The  monad  by  virtue  of  its  perceptive  power  is  microcosm1, 
but  each  monad,  as  individual,  reflects  the  universe  from  its 
individual  point  of  view,  most  clearly  those  parts  in  closest 
relation  with  it.  Being  thus  limited,  its  representation  of  the 
All  is  necessarily  confused.  All  things  being  microcosms, 
there  follow  three  laws  making  the  order  of  the  universe : — 
the  laws  of  Analogy,  of  Continuity,  of  Harmony.  Are  all 
beings  microcosms  or  representations  of  the  same  universe, 
they  must  be  analogous.  Are  they  analogous,  they  must 
also  be  different,  gradually  different,  forming  an  ascending 
series  of  beings.  Is  there  an  endless  plenum  of  microcosms, 
there  must  be  a  difference  at  an  infinite  number  of  stages; 
the  gradual  differences  must  be  infinitely  small,  and  the 
gradation  of  things  be  perfect  or  continuous. 

And  thus  the  monads  must  form  a  steady  succession 
of  homogeneous  substances ;  they  must  therefore  exhibit 
the  greatest  variety  amid  the  greatest  uniformity,  and  so 
form  a  harmonious  world-order ; — God,  the  original  monad, 
with  perfectly  adequate  perceptions,  and  all  other  monads  as 
effulgurations  of  his  nature.  Amongst  such  we  distinguish 
(a)  spirits  or  thinking  monads,  like  men,  able  to  have  clear  and 
distinct  perceptions,  some  of  them  even  adequate,  and  to 
have  consciousness  of  self  and  of  God  ;  (d)  animals,  or 
monads  having  sense  and  memory ;  (c)  plants  and  minerals, 
sleeping  monads  with  unconscious  perceptions,  these  being 

1  '  Perceptio  nihil  aliud  .  .  .  quam  multorum  in  uno  expressio' 
(Ep.  2  ad  De  Bosses)  ;  and  again  : — '  Perceptio  nihil  aliud  est  quam 
ilia  ipsa  repraesentatio  variationis  externae  in  interna.' 


302  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

vital  forces  in  plants.  To  the  human  mind  the  order  of 
monads  appears  in  sense  as  the  order  of  things  in  time  and 
space. 

The  flow  of  perceptions  in  each  monad  depends  upon 
an  internal  immanent  causality  ;  monads,  in  Leibniz's  phrase, 
having  no  windows  at  which  to  take  in  from  without.  The 
change  in  the  relations  of  monads,  on  the  other  hand,  their 
movement,  junction  and  separaion,  rest  on  merely  mechanical 
causality.  Between  this  flow  of  perceptions  or  internal  states 
and  these  movements  there  subsists  a  pre-established  harmony, 
pre-established  by  God.  In  man,  body  and  soul  corre- 
spond as  two  clocks  of  the  same  rate  of  speed,  set  together* 
This  system  of  pre-established  harmony,  referring  all  things 
ultimately  to  the  Deity,  requires  a  moral  explanation  of 
the  world  from  God  as  its  source.  But  then  God  also  must 
be  justified  out  of  the  order  of  things ;  hence  Leibniz's  choice 
of  the  word  Theodicy,  a  word  he  first  used  in  a  letter  to 
Magliabecchi  in  1697. 

In  conclusion  we  may  briefly  summarise  the  position 
of  Leibniz  in  relation  to  other  thinkers,  ancient  and  modern. 
Agreeing  with  Spinoza  and  Descartes  that  the  nature  of 
things  is  to  be  expressed  by  a  conception  of  substance, 
he  is  against  Spinoza  in  conceiving  substance  as  self-active 
force,  stirring  not  in  a  single  being,  but  in  an  endless  number 
of  substances ;  and  against  Descartes  in  conceiving  substance 
as  self-active  force,  not  as  in  two  kinds  of  substance,  but 
alike  in  all  things.  Thus  as  against  them  both,  he  is  for 
homogeneous  atoms  with  the  Atomists.  But  he  takes  his  atoms, 
against  Atomists  ancient  and  modern,  not  as  bodies,  but  as 
forces,  as  eternal  forms, '  substantial  forms.'  Here  he  agrees 
with  the  Schoolmen  and  the  Greeks,  especially  with  Plato. 
Nevertheless  he  is  against  Plato  and  with  Aristotle  in  con- 


xxvi.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  303 

ceiving  his  forms  not  as  ideal,  general  types,  but  as  natural 
forces,  independent  individuals,  each  an  'entelechy.' 

If  we  call  upon  fancy  for  help  to  get  the  fitting  schemata 
to  underlie  the  purely  logical  complex,  and  think  that  in  the 
whole  world  there  is  nothing  else  but  merely  simple,  constant, 
unchangeable,  substantial,  subjective,  force-exerting,  self- 
acting,  representative  entelechies  or  monads,  with  varying 
intensity  of  activity — these  numberless  entelechies  or  monads 
placed  in  pre-established  harmony  with  each  other  by  a 
Monad  of  monads,  so  that  every  monad,  in  spite  of  its 
inability  to  be  really  influenced  by  the  others,  yet  constantly 
represents  to  itself  with  more  or  less  distinctness  the  activities 
of  all  other  monads  and  harmonises  with  this  to  one  common 
end : — we  shall  truly  conceive  the  universe  according  to 
Leibniz. 


LECTURE   XXVII. 
on  kant's  critical  philosophy  *. 

•> 
Reading. —  The  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason  ^transl.  by  Max  Miiller  or  by 
J.  P.  Mahaffy),  and  The  Prolegomena  (transl.  by  J.  P.  Mahaffy). 
London  :  Macmillan. 

I.     Kanfs  Importance  in  the  Present  State  of  English  Thought. 

Kant  thought  more  deeply  than  any  man  in  his  generation 
— the  last  of  the  eighteenth  century — and  for  a  time  reigned 
supreme  over  the  intellect  of  his  own  country,  so  that  there 
all  thinking  in  the  following  generation  was  coloured  by,  and 
even  had  shape  from,  that  which  his  had  been. 

The  like  has  not  seldom  happened  in  the  history  of  human 
thought.  Is  then  our  interest  in  the  nature  of  his  opinions 
merely  historic?  There  are  great  philosophic  names,  later 
as  well  as  earlier,  of  whom  that  would  have  to  be  said,  but  it 
cannot  be  said  of  Kant.  His  is  a  power  that  has  survived, 
or,  if  it  ever  died,  it  has  had  its  resurrection.  That  it  lives 
and  works  is  manifest  whether  we  look  abroad,  or  watch 
what  is  stirring  in  our  midst  at  home.  In  Germany,  all 
through   the    great    period    of  scientific    work   which   has 

1  Selected  from  a  course  of  four  lectures  delivered  at  the  Royal 
Institution,  January,   February,   1874. 


Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  305 

supervened  on  that  time  of  speculative  fever  in  the  eaily 
years  of  this  century,  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  any  age 
or  country,  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  sway  of 
Kantian  ideas  over  the  minds  of  the  true  leaders  from 
Johannes  Miiller  to  Helmholtz.  It  is  not  that  such  men 
have  been  in  any  sense  professed  followers  of  the  philosopher 
— Helmholtz  especially,  in  these  excursions  into  the  philo- 
sophical region  by  which  he  has  signalised  himself  among 
men  of  science,  as  often  as  not  crosses  swords  with  the  great 
thinker  who  himself  was  a  man  of  science— but  they  have 
seen  and  avowed  that  here  was  one  whose  thought  could 
grasp  the  principles  of  scientific  inquiry  and  even  forecast 
some  of  its  issues.  Such  efforts  too  as  those  later  years  have 
brought  forth  to  think  out  a  philosophic  conception  of  things 
in  the  light  of  new  positive  knowledge  have  borne  a  reference 
to  the  sober  work  of  Kant,  with  relatively  little  regard  to 
the  more  daring  pretensions  of  his  philosophical  successors. 
Earlier  thinkers  are  allowed  importance  according  as  they 
lead  up  to  him,  and  he — hardly  any  other — is  held  to  have 
found  a  sure  footing  among  shifting  sands. 

In  France — to  speak  of  France  with  a  single  word  in 
passing — the  influence  of  Cousin  after  long  wavering  came 
at  least  to  be  exerted  in  favour  of  a  doctrine  which  is  only 
a  modification  of  Kant's,  while  a  thinker  so  different  as  Comte 
also  became  in  time  not  insensible  to  his  power.  And  at  the 
present  day  a  school  of  active  thinkers  is  firmly  organised 
who  pay  their  first  allegiance  to  the  founder  of  Critical 
Philosophy. 

In  our  own  country  an  interest  in  Kant  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  features  of  the  philosophical  movement  now  in  full 
course.  How  this  has  come  to  be  a  few  indications  must 
suffice.     As  early  as  1794  a  young  German,  Nitsch  by  name, 

x 


306  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

began  to  lecture  in  London  upon  the  new  system  of  thought 
then  at  the  height  of  its  repute  in  the  land  of  its  origin,  and 
he  seems  to  have  found  for  a  time  not  a  few  hearers.  Before 
the  end  of  the  century  also  more  than  one  statement  appeared 
in  print  of  the  main  principles  of  Kant's  philosophy,  and 
some  of  his  minor  works  even  were  translated.  Small, 
however,  must  have  been  the  impression  made  when  young 
Thomas  Brown,  himself  destined  to  do  some  work  in  philo- 
sophy, could  have  the  face  to  draw  entirely  from  a  French 
exposition  the  matter  for  his  boyish  ridicule  expended  on  the 
great  thinker  in  the  second  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review. 
Not  mirth  but  helpless  bewilderment  was  begotten  in  the  mind* 
of  Dugald  Stewart,  the  philosophical  light  of  the  day,  when 
a  little  later  he  tried  to  gain  a  notion  from  one  quarter  or 
another  of  the  new  portent  in  the  sphere  of  thought.  It  was 
only  outside  the  professional  circle  that  any  real  knowledge 
of  Kant  could  then  be  found.  Among  the  pupils  of  Nitsch 
was  one,  Thomas  Wirgman  by  name,  who  spent  years  in  the 
study  of  Kant  at  the  original  sources,  and  then  laboured  by 
every  device  of  exposition  to  unfold  the  pure  doctrine  to  his 
countrymen.  In  Wilkes's  Encyclopaedia  Londinensis — one  of 
the  many  universal  repositories  of  knowledge  provided  for 
that  age — there  appeared  in  the  years  from  1813  to  1823 
some  very  long  articles  by  Wirgman,  which  left  unexplored 
little  of  all  Kant's  woik  that  has  even  yet  become  known  to 
English  readers.  The  ardent  man  as  good  as  translated 
whole  works  of  the  master  whom  he  worshipped,  distilled 
the  whole  Critical  Philosophy  into  short  sayings,  set  it  out  in 
parti-coloured  diagrams,  defended  it  often  with  telling  point, 
taught  it  and  made  it  quite  plain  (so  he  avers)  even  to  his 
boys.  It  was  all  in  vain.  Oblivion  covered  him  and  his 
labours,    and   it    was    left   for   others   of  greater  name   to 


xxvil]     Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  307 

bring  forward  Kant  far  less  thoroughly  to  a  later  and  more 
open-minded  generation.  Sir  William  Hamilton  did  some- 
thing, and  his  follower  Dr.  Mansel  did  something  more. 
Dr.  Whewell  also  laid  hold  of  some  of  Kant's  conceptions 
and  turned  them  to  good  account  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  historic  growth  of  the  sciences.  Gradually,  by  various 
channels,  certain  main  principles  and  results  of  the  system 
became  familiar  to  the  English  mind,  and  began  to  challenge 
the  attention  of  the  inquirers  working  on  steadily  in  the  old 
English  vein  of  positive  psychological  research.  Kant's 
chief  work,  the  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason,  and  the  greater  part 
of  his  ethical  writings  meanwhile  had  found  translators  ;  and 
now  the  last  few  years  have  seen  the  efforts  of  a  knot  of 
workers  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  to  expound  the  Kantian 
doctrine  in  a  coherent  form  and  set  it  over  in  opposition  to 
the  latest  developments  of  home-grown  thought.  The  efforts 
of  these  workers,  chief  among  them  Mr.  Mahaffy,  are  worthy 
of  all  praise,  despite  some  traces  of  a  disposition  to  assume 
that  now  for  the  first  time  anywhere  Kant  has  got  his  chance 
of  true  interpretation.  However  that  may  be,  Mr.  Mahaffy  is 
laying  English  readers  under  a  permanent  debt  of  gratitude. 
There  will  never,  I  fear,  be  any  acknowledgement  of  poor 
Wirgman's  due. 

Now  there  is  one  reason,  or  rather  there  are  two  reasons, 
easily  understood,  for  the  importance  of  Kant  at  the  present 
time — for  his  unique  importance  in  comparison  with  any  of 
the  thinkers,  earlier  or  later,  who  are  commonly  classed  with 
him  as  speculative  philosophers.  Kant  is  not  a  speculative 
philosopher,  however  it  may  be  common  to  class  him ;  and 
he  is  a  philosopher  who,  whatever  the  province  he  claimed 
for  philosophy,  left,  nay  vindicated,  to  the  positive  sciences 
a  domain  of  their  own,  whence  they  cannot  be  dislodged. 


308  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

Supposing  him  at  the  same  time  a  thinker  of  unsurpassed 
reach  and  power,  nothing  else  seems  wanted  to  explain  his 
pre-eminence  in  an  age  devoted  above  all  to  the  pursuit  of 
scientific  inquiry. 

There  were  philosophers  before  Kant  who  took  up  that 
attitude  towards  the  sciences — English  philosophers  chiefly, 
with  Bacon  as  their  forerunner.  Locke,  the  first  who 
made  systematic  inquiry  as  to  the  possibilities  and  limits 
of  human  knowledge,  tracking  it  from  its  sources,  found, 
as  his  main  result,  a  justification  of  the  mode  of  research 
then  bein<?  practised  by  one  whom  he  calls  '  the  incomparable 
Mr.  Newton.'  Berkeley  was  not  an  idealist  who  would  hear 
nothing  of  experimental  investigation  of  nature  :  he  under- 
stood and  approved  of  it  thoroughly  in  principle,  however 
much  he  wished  the  common  scientific  conception  of  nature 
to  be  supplemented  by  a  philosophic  view.  Nor  was  Hume 
such  a  sceptic  that  he  derided — he  rather  lauded  and  spurred 
on  to — positive  inquiry  on  the  basis  of  experience.  By  the 
side  of  these,  however,  there  were  in  Europe,  from  about 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  a  little  earlier, 
thinkers  of  a  different  cast ;  whose  philosophy  was  no  sober 
inquiry  into  the  conditions  of  human  knowledge  joined  to 
the  practice  or  recommendation  of  experimental  research, 
but  a  succession  of  bold  attempts  to  reason  out  the  All — 
modern  only  in  the  conception  that  external  nature,  instead 
of  being  shut  out  of  view,  as  in  the  thought  of  the  Middle  Age, 
was  brought  expressly  and  even  predominantly  within  the 
sweep  of  the  speculative  effort.  Nor  is  any  abatement  to  be 
made  from  this  description  because  Descartes,  the  first  of 
these  thinkers,  and  Leibniz,  his  intellectual  peer,  did  much  to 
perfect  the  mathematical  instruments  necessary  for  carrying 
farther  the  scientific  investigation  of  nature.     They  neither 


xxvii.]     Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  309 

practised  nor  enjoined — at  least  not  consistently — the  method 
of  inquiry  common  to  Galileo  and  Newton.  In  their  view 
the  various  positive  sciences,  beginning  to  rear  their  heads 
by  the  side  of  philosophy,  had  no  legitimate  standing.  There 
was  nothing  to  be  known  that  could  not  be  rationally  evolved 
from  within  the  mind,  or  what  could  not  thus  be  reasoned  out 
was  of  no  importance.  Not  indeed  that  this  was  expressly 
declared,  but  the  speculative  philosophers  worked  on  as  if 
it  were  so.  Facts  of  experience  were  made  no  subject  of 
systematic  concern,  and  drew  notice  only  when  they  seemed, 
on  the  whole  rather  unexpectedly  than  otherwise,  to  lend 
a  kind  of  confirmation  to  the  grand  theory. 

But  if  the  three  last  centuries  are  a  new  intellectual  era 
in  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  because  philosophy  has 
reverted — and  not  least  through  the  efforts  of  these  thinkers 
— to  its  original  and  proper  function  of  carrying  disinterested 
inquiry,  high  and  low,  near  and  far,  to  the  uttermost  limit  of 
human  conceiving,  they  are  a  new  era  not  less  in  that,  in 
the  way  of  positive  science,  inquiry  has  started  from  the 
solid  ground  of  experience,  and,  however  free  its  flight,  has 
always  come  back  again  to  rest  upon  the  solid  ground. 
The  natural  sciences  have  grown  up,  and  are  indefinitely 
growing,  as  a  legitimate  and  fruitful  system  of  search  into 
the  different  aspects  or  departments  of  nature — proceeding 
upon  experience  and  having  no  higher  object  than  to  explain 
and  control  experience.  Thereby  is  altered  the  position  of 
philosophy.  Though  philosophy  may  have  continued  to  be 
the  rational  guide  and  director  of  human  conduct,  and  may 
claim  to  retain  hold  upon  fields  where  positive  inquiry  has 
not  been  able  to  gain  a  footing,  it  has  to  reckon  with  rivals 
upon  what  was  once  nn  undisputed  part  of  its  domain.  The 
rivals  have  established  themselves  on  their  chosen  ground  by 


310  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

accomplishing  what  philosophy  tried  but  failed  to  accomplish 
there,  and,  so  far  as  that  ground  is  concerned,  the  changed 
position  of  philosophy  is  that  it  retains  the  function  only  of 
understanding  and  prescribing  the  general  limits  of  what  the 
sciences  may  there  attempt.  This  was  what  the  English 
thinkers  saw  and  kept  always  in  view  in  their  philosophy, 
each  in  his  own  way.  It  was  what  Descartes  and  the  other 
speculative  philosophers  did  not  see  or  would  not  allow.  As 
we  judge  now,  the  English  thinkers  better  understood  the 
task  which  their  age  required  of  them.  Kant  likewise  under- 
stood it,  and  thus  is  for  ever  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
school  or  schools  of  speculative  metaphysicians.  He  is  one 
of  those  philosophical  inquirers  who  make  no  pretence  of 
stemming  the  resistless  tide  of  scientific  research — whose 
thought  is  rather  bent  towards  guiding  it  into  effective 
channels. 

Regarded  as  a  mental  philosopher,  however,  there  is 
a  side  of  Kant  on  which  he  holds  with  the  Rationalists  (as 
they  may  be  called),  and  lakes  ground  against  the  English 
thinkers ;  whence  his  own  claim,  and  also  his  repute,  to  have 
united  the  different  streams  of  thought  that  were  before  him 
in  a  doctrine  embodying  all  the  truth  of  either.  The  English 
thinkers  sought  to  explain  all  knowledge  as  developed  out  of 
particular  experiences,  and  it  was  from  this  point  of  view  that 
they  could  so  easily  make  allowance  for  natural  science  by 
the  side  of  their  philosophy ;  this  being  but  an  application  to 
the  general  question  of  human  knowledge  of  the  same  habit 
of  thought  or  method  of  inquiry  exercised  in  the  upcoming 
sciences.  Kant  on  the  other  hand  denied  that  knowledge, 
as  actually  had,  could  ever  be  developed  from  such  experi- 
ences as  the  English  inquirers  adduced,  and  made  it  a  great 
part  of  all  his  philosophic  task  to  explain  from  the  native 


xxvii.]     Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  311 

constitution  of  the  mind  how  experience,  truly  so  to  be 
called,  could  come  to  pass.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that 
in  the  execution  of  that  task  he  displayed  a  depth  of  insight 
and  width  of  intellectual  grasp  never  before  shown ;  so  that, 
man  for  man,  he  must  be  pronounced  a  far  greater  thinker 
than  any  of  his  English  predecessors.  It  only  docs  not 
therefore  follow  that  he  was  on  the  right  track,  and  they  were 
on  the  wrong.  There  have  been  thinkers  hardly  inferior  to 
himself,  upon  some  lines  perhaps  superior,  who  were  on 
a  wrong  track,  when  he  was  on  the  right.  A  cause  is  after 
all  something  greater  than  any  of  its  upholders— greater,  that 
is,  than  their  particular  conceptions  of  it.  It  is  so  in  the 
sciences,  which  take  to  themselves  the  best  results  that  all 
workers  bring,  and  often  are  advanced  by  inferior  men  when 
greater  ones  have  strayed.  One  thing  at  least  is  certain,  that 
Kant,  in  as  far  as  he  sided  with  the  Rationalists,  claimed 
a  finality  for  his  philosophical  position  which  did  exclude  the 
notion  of  farther  inquiry  as  touching  that.  And  in  view  of 
the  course  of  human  thought  in  modern  days,  before  or  since 
Kant,  that  is  a  claim  that  must  be  regarded  with  some 
suspicion. 

For  it  is  possible  to  look  upon  the  course  of  modern 
thought  as  one  long  struggle  waged  between  the  rival 
principles  of  inquiry,  for  which  there  are  no  more  expressive 
names  than  Reason  and  Experience — a  struggle  in  which  the 
cause  of  Experience  evidently  makes  way,  though  Reason 
does  not  retire  except  to  renew  the  encounter  from  fresh 
positions,  and  Experience  does  not  advance  except  by  multi- 
plying its  forces  and  ever  reorganising  them  in  face  of  the 
adversary.  As  regards  the  investigation  of  nature  we  have 
already  remarked  that  science,  instead  of  reasoning  out  from 
within    how    things   could    or   should    be,   as   of  old,    now 


312  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

seeks  to  interpret  the  universe  simply  as  found — its  parts 
in  the  light  of  one  another.  But  it  should  be  added  that 
positive  investigation,  in  advancing  to  occupy  ever  new  fields, 
has  not  thus  broadened  its  scope  without  also  acquiring 
depth.  There  has  been  forced  upon  it  the  necessity  of 
satisfying,  as  far  as  may  be,  that  instinct  of  coherent  vision 
which  prompted  the  earlier  speculative  efforts ;  and  the  word 
Experience  to  a  scientific  mind  has  come  to  have  a  signifi- 
cance which  it  needs  an  education  to  understand.  Similar 
is  the  result,  or  tendency,  visible  in  the  progress  of  the 
attempt  to  account  for  the  fact  or  facts  of  human  knowledge. 
That  is  the  central  question  which  philosophy  at  all  times 
has  had  to  consider,  and  it  is  the  quesfon  which  modern 
philosophy,  as  differing  from  the  sciences,  claims  specially 
for  its  own.  It  is  so  expressly  in  Locke  and  in  Kant ;  it  is 
so  implicitly  in  the  other  thinkers  who  disregard  or  disavow 
the  restriction.  In  Descartes'  theory  of  knowledge  specu- 
lative Reason  has  the  form  of  pure  intellectualism ;  to  him 
sense-experience  is  sheer  and  incurable  delusion,  while  truth 
and  certainty  appertain  only  to  knowledge  that  is  supposed 
born  with  or  innate  to  the  mind.  It  is  a  naive  conception, 
and  facing  it,  in  like  manner,  Experience  stands  at  first  in 
the  form  of  the  crude  sensationalism  of  Hobbes — crude  and 
hardly  making  pretence  to  afford  a  full  explanation.  Comes 
Locke,  however,  with  his  systematic  inquiry  into  the  origin 
and  limits  of  knowledge,  and  the  philosophical  standard  of 
Experience  is  definitively  raised :  it  is  proclaimed  that  all 
knowledge  originally  comes  by  the  way  of  experience  in  the 
individual,  and  that  by  a  reference  to  the  sources  of  psycho- 
logical experience  the  import  of  aught  claiming  to  be 
knowledge  must  be  judged.  On  the  oiher  side,  Leibniz 
abandons  the  Cartesian  position,  and  it  is  with  a  very  much 


xxvii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  313 

deeper  conception  of  knowledge  as  the  development  of  poten- 
tialities lying  in  mind,  or,  again,  as  the  interpretation  of 
experience  according  to  native  mental  predispositions,  that 
he  sallies  forth  by  way  of  Reason  to  explain  the  All. 
Confidently  his  disciples,  Wolff  the  chief,  build  up  a  huge 
dogmatic  system  out  of  his  large  ideas ;  the  while  Berkeley 
and  Hume  push  farther  along  the  line  of  positive  inquiry 
opened  by  Locke,  utA  find  a  derivation  in  psychological 
experience  for  much  reckoned  hitherto  simple  in  conscious- 
ness. At  the  same  time  there  is  in  both,  as  compared  with 
Locke,  a  deepened  sense  of  the  limitation  put  upon  know- 
ledge by  experience,  whatever  different  expression  it  has  in 
each ;  Berkeley  rejoicing  to  be  able  thus  to  annihilate  the 
bugbear  of  unintelligent  matter  with  all  its  soul-debasing 
influences,  while  Hume  finds  his  pleasure  in  calmly  pricking 
the  bubbles  blown  by  the  vanity  of  human  reason. 

What  neither  seriously  attempts  beyond  Locke  is  to  find 
a  full  and  systematic  explanation  of  human  knowledge  and 
science  as  existing  in  fact.  This  is  the  task  reserved  for 
Kant.  As  little  disposed  as  they  to  make  light  of  experience, 
and  more  than  they  concerned  to  justify  the  standing  of  modern 
science,  he  is  with  them  the  sworn  foe  of  metaphysical 
speculation.  No  innate  ideas,  ousting  experience,  as  for 
Descartes — no  predeterminations  to  think,  making  experience 
superfluous,  as  for  Leibniz — can  for  him  explain  the  facts  of 
real  objective  knowledge.  But  neither  can  he  accept  the 
position  of  the  English  Experientialists,  working  without 
system  where  they  are  in  the  right  vein,  and  without  discern- 
ment of  the  true  issues  to  be  met.  Hence  his  new  manner 
of  inquiry,  named  Critical,  into  the  foundations  of  human 
knowledge,  resulting  in  the  detection  of  a  variety  of  rational 
elements  or  conditions  to  be  necessarily  assumed  as  prior 


314  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

to  experience,  and  with  the  complement  of  experience — 
by  no  means  without  experience — making  real  knowledge 
possible. 

It  looks  like  the  reconciliation  of  all  differences  which  it  is 
meant  for.  But  is  there  an  end  of  conflict — Reason  satisfied 
with  such  a  justification  or  excuse  for  its  old  pretensions, 
Experience  contented  with  this  frank  and  decisive  recogniiion 
of  its  claim  to  be  considered  ?  By  no  means.  After  Kant, 
in  Germany  speculation  returns  to  the  onset  with  a  vehemence 
never  known  before,  and  in  the  end  sinks  exhausted  rather 
than  is  overcome.  In  England  the  cause  of  Experience  finds 
new  upholders,  who  bend  their  energies  in  good  earnest  to* 
the  development  of  a  theory  of  scientific  evidence,  also  to  the 
pursuit  of  psychological  research  as  the  only  positive  founda- 
tion for  a  philosophy — a  philosophy  not  to  be  thought  of  as 
other  than  progressive  while  psychology  in  relation  with  the 
sciences  generally  makes  progress.  And  in  such  a  sense,  the 
principle  of  Experience,  more  or  less  profoundly  conceived, 
does  in  fact  at  the  present  time  dominate  the  field  of 
philosophic  thought,  not  here  only  but  also  in  the  land 
of  Kant. 

Will  it  continue  dominant?  And  what  then  of  Kant? 
Experientialism,  amongst  ourselves,  has  made  its  last  great 
advance  with  so  little  reference  to  the  import  of  Kant's 
doctrine  as  a  whole,  that  its  real  conflict,  where  it  is  at 
variance  with  that,  may  be  said  to  be  still  to  come.  Perhaps 
it  is  not  altogether  a  matter  of  regret  that  the  English  philo- 
sophical inquirers  of  this  century — I  exclude  those  of  the 
younger  generation  now  rising  up — have  not  gone  to  school, 
as  they  might  have  done,  under  Kant.  Working  upon  the 
line  of  the  old  tradition  of  English  thought,  they  have  done 
their  best  with  their  own  principle  of  inquiry,  and  the  result 


xxvii.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  315 

is  there  to  be  judged.  Nor  is  it  a  result,  in  one  or  other  of 
the  present  or  newly-departed  leaders  on  the  field  of  thought, 
to  be  lightly  spoken  of.  In  logical  theory  and  psychological 
science  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  English  inquirers  of  the 
last  two  generations  have  made  signal  progress :  the  fame  of 
their  work  is  spread  abroad.  Addressing  themselves,  without 
special  regard  to  Kant,  to  the  questions  concerning  human 
knowledge  which  the  philosopher  has  to  consider,  they  have 
sought  an  experiential  solution  of  difficulties  which  made  him 
desert  their  position,  after  he  had  been  in  it.  Their  solution 
has  found  a  large  measure  of  acceptance,  falling  in  as  it  does 
with  the  general  scientific  tendency  of  the  time,  and  Kant's 
solution  of  such  questions,  as,  for  instance,  the  necessary 
character  of  mathematical  truth,  physical  causation  and  the 
like,  has  been  set  aside,  when  not  neglected.  But  nothing 
strikes  the  attentive  reader  of  Kant  more  than  his  anticipation, 
already  then,  of  the  kind  of  solution  which  Experientialism 
would  give,  and  has  in  fact  given.  One  sees  that  he  did  not 
forsake  the  experiential  position  without  a  very  hard  struggle 
to  remain  there,  and  that  he  did  forsake  it  only  because  of 
the  impossibility,  as  he  ultimately  deemed,  of  explaining  from 
it  the  actual  facts  of  human  knowledge.  Now  that  he  did 
right  to  abandon  it,  I  do  not  say ;  the  progress  of  inquiry 
since  then  has  done  much  to  justify  the  faith  of  those  who 
have  clung  to  the  position.  But  we  may  be  sure  they  were 
no  common  difficulties  that  urged  him  to  enter  upon  the 
thorny  path  of  his  critical  inquiry:  and  the  full  force  of  these 
difficulties  has  still  to  be  apprehended  within  the  English 
school.  Nay,  I  venture  to  think  that  until  the  dominant 
Experientialism,  even  as  transformed  in  the  system  of 
Mr.  Spencer,  has  come  face  to  face  with  Kant's  doctrine, 
not  at  this  point  or  at  that,  but  at  all  points,  and  has  stood 


316  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

the  encounter,  it  has  not  secured  its  future.  Kant's  Critical 
Philosophy,  if  it  did  nothing  else,  raised  deeper,  yet  at  the 
same  time  more  determinate,  questions  than  any  philosophy 
before,  and  though  his  own  way  of  answer  be  not  final,  the 
questions  abide.  It  concerns  English  thought  at  the  present 
day  to  mark  them  well,  and  that  is  the  reason  of  Kant's 
special  importance  now. 


LECTURE   XXVIII. 

on  kant's  critical  philosophy  {continued). 
II.     General  View  of  the  Kritik  and  the  Prolegomena. 

The  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason,  in  the  shape  that  it  finally 
received  from  Kant,  dates  from  the  year  1787.  It  first  saw 
the  light  in  1781,  afier  those  eleven  years  of  close  and 
sustained  thinking  that  supervened  in  his  life  upon  the  long 
period  during  which  he  slowly  grasped  the  issues  of  other 
men's  thoughts,  and  came  at  last  to  conceive  the  idea  of  an 
inquiry  to  be  driven  down  deep  beneath  them  all.  The 
second  edition  of  the  Kritik,  appearing  in  1787,  was  con- 
siderably changed  from  the  first — changed  in  the  expression, 
Kant  himself  declares,  at  important  points  to  make  his 
thoughts  clearer ;  changed  in  the  conception,  others  declare, 
to  make  it  less  abhorrent  to  the  prejudices  of  the  vulgar. 
It  is  easier  to  repel  the  insinuation  than  to  allow  the  improve- 
ment. However  well-meant,  the  change  in  expression  clouds 
the  sense  not  seldom  instead  of  clearing.  What  is  called  the 
change  in  conception,  while  it  can  in  no  case  have  sprung 
from  the  baseness  of  compromise  in  one  of  the  most  fearless 
of  thinkers,  is  no  more  than  an  effort,  only  partially  successful, 
towards  a  greater  consistency  than  was  possible,  or  at  least 
was  attained,  in  the  first  execution  of  so  stupendous  a  work. 

At  all  events  the  position  in  which  Kant  rested  from  1787 


318  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

was  already  taken  in  1783.  Two  years  after  the  appearance 
of  the  Kritik,  when  it  was  beginning  to  draw  public  notice, 
but  hardly  yet  had  been  grasped  in  its  full  scope  by  any 
readers,  while  it  was  grievously  misapprehended  by  some, 
Kant  wrote  a  short  and  simpler  treatise  to  bring  out  the  main 
principles  and  results  of  his  investigation,  without  the  elaborate 
system  of  its  suppoits.  The  Prolegomena  to  any  Future 
Metaphysic,  very  serviceable  as  an  introduction  to  the  severity 
of  the  method  of  the  Kritik,  is  conceived  in  the  same  key  as 
the  second  edition  of  the  latter. 

The  Kritik  contains  the  systematic  exposition  of  Kant's 
thought,  so  widely  conceived,  so  laboriously  worked  out. 
When  his  mind,  in  full  maturity,  originated  the  great  purpose, 
part  of  it  seemed  to  be  achieved  as  with  a  spring,  but  it  was 
by  no  means  so  with  the  whole,  and  the  years  as  they  passed 
saw  him  groping  about  for  a  path  and  baffled  long  before  he 
found  one.  The  traces  of  the  internal  struggle,  wherever  it 
was  severe,  are  only  too  apparent  in  the  exposition,  though 
this  was  far  from  designed.  Kant  did  not  write  out  his  work 
till  he  had  succeeded  in  thinking  it  out — the  mere  writing  out 
took,  it  is  said,  but  five  months  after  so  many  years  of  mental 
effort — and  the  greater  difficulty  in  the  exposition  at  some 
places  represented  in  his  own  view  only  the  greater  complexity 
of  subject  there.  For  it  was  a  system  of  philosophical  thought 
fully  and  equally  developed  in  all  its  parts,  and  no  mere 
essay  towards  a  philosophical  view,  that  Kant  put  forward 
in  the  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason.  Nor  was  it  less  a  systematic 
whole,  because  it  did  not  attempt  over  again  the  task  of  past 
metaphysical  systems — because  it  even  stopped  short  of  the 
soberer  positive  doctrine  which  it  held  out  in  prospect  as  the 
true  substitute  for  these.  '  The  inventory  of  all  our  posses- 
sions through  pure  Reason,  systematically  disposed' — such 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  319 

is  Kant's  own  description  of  his  work.  A  mere  inventory, 
and  not  the  rational  possessions  themselves ;  yet  withal  one 
systematic  and  complete. 

Reason :  it  dealt  with  knowing — the  mind's  faculty  of 
knowledge ;  not  with  Being,  as  dogmatic  metaphysic  had 
done. 

Pure  Reason :  it  dealt  with  knowledge  as  dependent  only 
on  the  mind,  or  with  faculty  before  and  apart  from  all 
experience  ;  not  with  the  variety  of  the  sources  or  channels 
of  experience,  as  Locke's  inquiry  had  done.  Kritik  of  Pure 
Reason :  it  was  an  exhaustively  reasoned  search  for  the 
conditions  of  such  knowledge,  which,  well  or  ill  grounded, 
could  not,  Kant  held,  be  denied  in  fact ;  not  an  exercise  of 
dialectical  ingenuity,  irregularly  pursued  and  bent  to  mere 
negation,  as  Hume's  scrutiny  had  been. 

Finding,  then,  in  the  result,  the  general  cognitive  faculty 
to  be  twofold— a  faculty  of  Sense  and  a  faculty  of  Thought 
— and  that  each  had  fixed  and  native  conditions  of  exercise, 
Kant  made  a  corresponding  division  of  his  s>  siematic  work, 
and  set  forth,  with  full  detail  of  grounds  and  consequences, 
the  doctrine  of  Sense  and  doctrine  of  Thought  thus  critically 
evolved.  This  doctrine  he  called  Transcendental  because 
treating  of  the  conditions  of  knowledge  prior  to  experience. 

The  subsidiary  work,  the  Prolegomena,  is  cast  in  quite 
a  different  mould.  It  is  not  so  much  that  it  is  short  and 
summary  where  the  Kritik  is  elaborate  to  painfulness,  and 
that  in  particular  it  does  not  exhibit  the  most  characteristic 
side  of  Kant — his  determination  to  slur  over  no  difficulties  in 
his  path — but  rather  that  it  has,  by  the  side  of  the  Kritik, 
the  distinctive  character  of  disclosing  the  route  by  which  he 
began  to  work  down  to  tha  resolution  of  the  problem  of 
knowledge  in  general  which  the  systematic  work  gives  in  full. 


320  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

As  Kant  himself  technically  expresses  the  difference,  the 
Prolegomena  proceeds  analytically  while  the  Kritik  is  syn- 
thetic ;  and  though  the  resolution  in  the  one  case  is  far  from 
being  as  exhaustively  pursued  as  is  the  composition  in  the 
other,  the  insight,  nevertheless,  given  into  the  working  of  his 
mind  cannot  be  too  highly  valued.  The  Prolegomena  shows 
us  the  very  questions  that  broke  Kant's  rest  till  he  found 
answers  for  them,  and,  if  it  does  not  give  the  complete 
answers  as  they  may  be  extracted  from  the  Krilik,  it  gives  in 
each  case  what  he  is  most  disposed  to  lay  stress  upon. 

We  have  seen  what  was  the  school  of  dogmatic  meta- 
physic  in  which  Kant  had  his  philosophical  nurture.  Wolffs' 
system  of  metaphysic  began  with  a  general  doctrine  of  pure 
Being,  or  Ontology,  and  then  broke  up  into  three  parts 
dealing  with  the  special  kinds  of  being,  namely,  World  or 
Cosmos,  Soul,  God.  By  pure  reasoning  Wolff  sought  to 
determine  the  character  of  all  these,  and  there  could  be 
nothing  but  Reason  to  determine  them  by.  He  had  indeed 
his  empirical  physics  and  emp:"'cal  psychology,  but  these 
were  subordinate  to  the  rational  doctrine  of  World  and  Soul, 
more  especially  as  far  as  concerned  their  ultimate  essence  or 
inner  substance,  of  which  there  was  no  experience.  Of  the 
World  as  a  harmonious  whole  of  real  beings  appearing,  as  far 
as  they  appeared  to  our  sense  at  all,  in  the  guise  of  external 
nature,  or,  again,  of  the  Soul  as  that  permanent  substance  or 
force,  the  spring  of  all  our  conscious  life,  there  could  be  no 
experience;  still  less  could  there  be  any  experience  of  the 
Infinite  Being,  the  Being  of  Beings.  Yet  into  all  these 
supernatural  entities  and  pure  Being  itself  Wolff  claimed  to 
have  rational  insight ;  nay  the  more,  the  farther  they  were 
removed  above  experience. 

A  fine  prospect  surely,  that  philosophic  reason  should  be 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  321 

able  to  determine  all  that  was  best  worth  knowing — determine 
it  fully,  and  (what  was  of  as  much  account)  determine  it  all 
from  within.  Nor  could  there  be  any  doubt  that  it  was  by 
an  unconquerable  impulse  that  the  human  mind  was  ever 
being  driven  forth  beyond  its  experience  to  find  a  realm  of 
the  purely  intelligible,  when  system  after  system  of  metaphysic 
had  been  appearing  since  the  dawn  of  reflexion.  But  was 
it  not  a  strange  and  suspicious  circumstance  that  system  after 
system  as  regularly  disappeared,  even  though  it  were  only  to 
appear  over  again  in  some  new  shape ;  nothing  here  being 
fixed,  while  other  sciences  were  making  steady  progress? 
The  prospect,  however  fine,  somehow  remained  prospect 
always.  And  now  here  was  Hume,  with  cool  steady  hand 
drawing  a  veil  that  shut  out  all  such  prospect  for  ever ;  nay, 
as  the  result  of  his  dialectic,  leaving  it  doubtful  whether  even 
on  the  field  of  experience  any  one  thing  could  be  brought 
into  fixed  and  certain  connexion  with  anything  else.  It  was 
time  indeed  that  metaphysic  should  be  called  on  to  establish 
its  pretensions — to  establish  them,  or  failing  that,  to  abandon 
them.  Such  was  the  form  in  which  it  first  became  a  question 
with  Kant  to  inquire  into  the  nature  and  capabilities  of  Pure 
Reason.  Metaphysic  as  dealing  with  the  supernatural,  was 
a  creation  of  Pure  Reason :  Was  such  a  science  possible  ? 
The  Prolegomena  is  mainly  an  answer  to  the  question  in  that 
form.  It  is  answered  by  implication  and  with  much  more 
circumstance  in  the  Kritik  in  this  other  form  : — Is  knowledge 
possible  through  pure  Iteason,  apart  from  all  or  any  experience, 
and  transcending  experience  ? 

Whether  Hume  was  right  or  not  as  regards  knowledge  of 
the  supernatural,  Kant  came  in  time  to  be  convinced,  as  he 
had  from  the  first  suspected,  that  the  general  question  of 
knowledge  was  tried  upon  far  too  limited  an  issue  by  his 

Y 


322  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

acute  predecessor.  In  particular  was  it  not  a  fact  that 
sciences  existed,  pure  in  respect  of  having  their  origin  not 
in  experience  and  being  freely  extended  without  reference 
to  actual  experience,  yet  real  in  having  an  indubitable 
application  to  the  realm  of  experience?  What  of  Mathe- 
matics, the  very  type  of  exact  knowledge,  carried  so  far  by 
the  continuous  labour  of  many  generations?  And  what 
of  that  body  of  laws  or  principles  (in  which  the  law  of 
causation  was  but  one),  which  men  had  ready  to  employ 
for  the  interpretation  of  their  natural  experience,  and  which 
taken  altogether  formed  a  general  Science  of  Nature  ?  Related 
to  Metaphysic  in  respect  of  their  method,  so  that  any  settle- 
ment of  its  fate  must  needs  reflect  upon  them,  they  had 
all  the  character  of  universal  recognition  and  progressive 
development  so  notoriously  wanting  to  it.  Why  then  not 
judge  of  its  pretensions  or  claims  in  the  light  of  their 
achievements?  Let  it  be  discovered  how  they  could  be 
what  in  fact  they  were,  and  so  it  might  be  clearly  seen 
whether  it  could  be  what  in  fact  it  yet  was  not.  A  critical 
search  for  their  conditions  would  at  the  same  time  show' 
what  conditions  should  be  required  of  it.  Therefore  the 
Prolegomena,  for  the  sake  of  the  main  question,  seeks  first 
to  answer  two  others :  How  is  pure  Mathematics  possible  r 
How  is  fur e  Science  0/  Nature  possible  ?  Both  are  answered 
by  implication  and  more  exhaustively  in  the  Kritik  in  another 
form :  How  is  knowledge  possible  through  pure  Reason,  which 
shall  hold  for  experience  received  by  Sense  and  fashioned  by 
Thought? 

If  this  makes  clear  the  relation  of  the  two  works,  it  will 
be  possible  without  misunderstanding  to  pass  from  the  one 
to  the  other,  where  need  is.  There  remains,  however,  one 
mode  of  statement  which  not  only  may  be  adopted  from  the 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  323 

point  of  view  of  either,  but  has  the  advantage  of  bringing 
the  whole  inquiry  into  the  compass  of  a  single  question. 
How  are  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  possible?  Till  the 
critical  question  is  made  to  assume  this  general  form,  it  does 
not  admit  of  a  general  solution.  The  solution  in  full  is  to 
be  looked  for  only  in  the  Kritik,  or  rather  the  Kritik  is  the 
solution.  But  first  the  statement  of  the  question  itself  needs 
some  explanation l. 

III.  Mathematical  Necessity  and  Muscular  Sense. 
Reverting  to  the  first  special  question  in  its  most  general 
form  :  How  is  the  pure  science  of  Mathematics  possible  ?  or 
rather,  How  is  pure  geometry  possible  ? — for  it  is  practically 
to  geometry  that  Kant  limits  the  inquiry — there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  was  through  this  question  that  he  first  got 
beyond  Hume,  when  already  by  the  year  1770  he  is  seen 
with  his  doctrine  of  space  wrought  out.  It  took  a  much 
longer  time  before  he  was  equally  sure  of  having  surmounted 
Hume's  doctrine  of  physical  experience.  The  reason  for 
this  was  not  only  because  the  second  question  was  one  more 
difficult  in  itself:  Hume  did  not  grapple  with  the  first  in  that 
portion  of  his  work  known  to  Kant2.  Neither  had  Locke 
done  much  more  to  explain  the  true  import  of  mathematical 
science,  though  to  attempt  it  lay  still  more  in  his  way  than  in 
Hume's,  bent  as  he  was  on  giving  a  positive  account  of  the 
variety  of  human  knowledge  from  the  ground  of  experience. 
Before  Kant's    time   the    Rationalists   also    had    failed    to 

1  The  student  should  here  refer  to  supra,  Lect.  XIII,  and  study 
the  'Transcendental  Aesthetic'  in  the  Kritik. — Ed. 

2  Hume's  Inquiry  concerning  Human  Understanding  was  translated 
into  German  in  1765  ;  the  Treatise  ^in  which  he  does  deal  with  the 
question  of  mathematical  truth)  was  not  translated  till  1793.  Kant, 
when  he  wrote  the  Kritik,  knew  the  former  work  only. 


324  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

account  for  the  nature  of  the  science  of  mathematics. 
Splendid  mathematician  as  Leibniz  was,  he  did  not  in  his 
philosophy  distinguish  between  the  logical  necessity  of 
analytic  judgment  and  the  necessity  that  might  be  claimed, 
which  he  was  foremost  to  claim,  for  judgments  that  were 
really  synthetic.  Kant  just  did  that,  and  so  put  the  question 
as  to  mathematical  truth  in  train  for  settlement !  It  may  be 
said  that  on  all  hands  before  Kant  the  necessity  of  geometry 
was  saved  at  the  expense  of  its  character  as  a  real  objective 
science. 

The  answer  of  the  Prolegomena  to  the  question,  How 
can  geometry  be  at  once  a  science  of  pure  intuition  and* 
objectively  valid  ?  if  not  in  these  words,  may  be  thus  stated: — 
Geometry  can  make  universal  and  necessary  determinations, 
if  it  makes  them  concerning  that  which  is  not  got  by  way  of 
experience,  but  is  furnished  forth  from  within  the  mind ;  and 
these  determinations  are  objectively  valid  of  sensible  things, 
if  sense-experience  cannot  be  had  by  the  mind  except  under 
conditions  of  that  which  is  thus  supplied  by  the  mind. 
Geometry  deals  with  space  and  is  valid  for  objects  as  filling 
space.  If  space  is  not  got  through  sense,  but  is  given  with 
the  sensibility — is  presupposed  before  sensations — then  what- 
ever is  determined  regarding  it  is  necessarily  determined  for 
all  that  cannot  be  received  except  as  falling  within  it. 

But  this  is  only  half  the  battle.  We  are  not  told  how  the 
determination  of  space  is  made.  Granted  that,  being  made, 
it  is  made  also  necessarily  for  all  that  in  any  case  it  may 
enfold,  the  real  difficulty  is  as  to  the  making  of  it.  Space 
taken  merely  as  a  Form  of  Sensibility — a  sort  of  indispensable 
frame  within  which  sensations  are  received — is  something 
inert  and  barren,  explaining  nothing.  That  the  mind  should 
be  so  constituted  as   to  receive   sense-impressions  only  in 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  325 

a  fixed  way  is  one  thing :  it  is  another  that  the  mind  should 
be  able,  as  regards  this  fixed  way  of  receiving,  to  make  all 
kinds  of  a  priori  determination  of  it — to  make  it  the  subject 
of  an  endless  variety  of  pure  intuitions.  Or  let  the  difficulty 
be  put  thus :  Geometry  in  its  intuitive  judgments  brings  to- 
gether into  synthetic  unity  different  aspects  of  space.  Where 
does  the  combining  power  come  in  ? 

The  Kriiik,  within  its  wide  scope,  does  not  fail  to  meet  and 
resolve  this  difficulty.  It  draws  a  distinction,  which  we  shall 
dwell  upon  more  fully  at  a  later  stage,  between  receptivity 
of  sense  and  spontaneity  of  knowledge  through  under- 
standing. The  mind  is  not  only  liable  to  be  affected,  but 
is  capable  of  acting  in  the  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  in 
a  determinate  manner  prescribed  by  its  constitution.  Its 
action  is  what  is  called  thinking,  and  how  Thought  must 
operate  to  become  Knowledge  proper  may  be  called  the 
central  question  in  the  whole  critical  inquiry.  Geometrical 
science,  being  knowledge — knowledge  indeed  of  the  most 
perfect  sort — involves  thinking  or  the  spontaneous  activity 
of  mind;  but,  as  its  judgments  were  said  to  be  intuitive, 
depending  upon  no  generalised  expeiience — nay,  for  that 
matter,  upon  no  experience  at  all — the  mental  action  takes 
place  in  a  manner  peculiar.  What  the  mind  spontaneously 
brings  before  itself  to  be  regarded  intuitively,  for  example 
a  line,  is  something  singular,  as  much  singular  as  in  the 
empirical  intuition  of  sensation.  Without  having  an  object 
actually  before  the  senses  it  is  as  if  an  object  were  there. 
That  condition,  with  reference  to  anything  that  we  have  had 
sensible  experience  of,  is  called  Representative  or  Reproductive 
Imagination.  The  geometrical  figure  is  also  had  in  Imagi- 
nation, but  not  representatively,  because  there  never  was  any 
experience  of  it.     The  mental  act  by  which  it  is  called  into 


326  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

being  is  an  act  of  Productive  Imagination.  When  we  think 
of  a  line  or  circle  we  draw  it  in  thought  by  a  motion  which, 
says  Kant,  is  an  act  of  pure  subject.  Drawing  it  so,  we  in 
the  very  act  or  fact  accomplish  a  synthesis  of  the  successive 
stages.  Such  is  the  agency  through  which  it  comes  to  pass 
that  within  space,  as  the  pure  Form  of  Sensibility,  particular 
determinations  can  be  made  and  particular  conjunctions 
be  established.  The  space  of  the  geometer,  had  by  pure 
intuition,  is  therefore  something  very  different  from  space 
as  the  mere  form  of  Sensibility.  Were  space  not  such 
a  form,  no  pure  intuition  would  be  possible,  or  at  least 
none  having  any  reference  or  application  to  sensible  objects.* 
But  for  the  pure  intuition  to  take  place,  constructive  action 
is  necessary,  and  this,  according  to  Kant,  is  the  work  of  the 
faculty  called  Productive  Imagination. 

Between  Kant  and  modern  Experientialism  the  question 
as  to  geometry  still  remains  under  dispute.  I  say  geometry, 
because  that  is  the  particular  exact  science  as  regards  which 
Kant  fully  defined  his  position ;  but,  of  course,  it  is  not  only 
geometry  that  is  involved.  Modern  Experientialism  has 
generalised  the  inquiry,  and  has  found  its  profit  in  so  doing. 
But  what  is  this  Experientialism  ?  Under  that  common  ban- 
ner are  ranged  inquiries  of  very  different  kinds.  When  Kant, 
defining  the  exact  character  of  the  pure  science  of  geometry 
upon  the  side  where  its  demonstrative  certainty  had  been 
confounded  with  mere  logical  necessity,  declared  that  it  could 
never  be  explained  if  its  subject  were  held  to  be  given  in  or 
through  any  experience,  he  was  reckoning  only  with  psycho- 
logists like  Locke  and  Berkeley,  and  with  these  when  they 
had  implied  rather  than  asserted — certainly  not  when  they 
had  ever  tried  to  show — that  the  science  had  an  experiential 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  327 

origin.  Professional  mathematicians — except  Leibniz,  and 
he  rather  in  his  other  capacity  as  a  speculative  philosopher — 
had  not  reflected  upon  the  theory  of  their  practice.  But, 
since  the  time  of  Kant,  and  more  or  less  in  the  light  of  his 
Criticism,  mathematicians  have  been  forward  to  probe 
the  secret  of  their  methods  and  sound  the  foundations  of 
their  science.  Logicians  also,  or  generaL  theorists  upon 
Method,  have  considered  the  case  of  mathematics  in 
relation  to  that  of  the  positive  sciences  generally.  And 
psychologists,  concerned  to  trace  the  development  of  human 
knowledge,  have  brought  to  light  sources  of  experience  and 
determined  the  character  of  intellectual  processes  of  special 
import  to  the  theory  of  mathematics.  As  regards  the  pro- 
fessional mathematicians,  I  take  it  to  be  a  mere  statement  of 
fact  to  say  that  their  late  researches  and  their  present  outlook 
do  not  tend  to  make  them  rest  content  with  Kant's  resolution 
of  his  first  problem.  I  refrain,  however,  from  the  presump- 
tion of  offering  a  lay  opinion  upon  the  attitude  now  taken  by 
the  leaders  on  this  line  of  special  inquiry.  Neither  is  the 
opportunity  suitable  for  resuming  and  estimating  such 
a  general  theory  of  science,  inclusive  of  mathematics,  as, 
in  this  country,  J.  S.  Mill  especially  has  wrought  out  from 
the  ground  of  Experience.  But  as  Kant  based  his  theory  of 
geometry  upon  a  doctrine  of  Sense — his  Transcendental 
doctrine,  devised  to  explain  what  he  denied  was  or  could  be 
explicable  through  psychological  experience — there  is  forced 
upon  us  the  consideration  whether  psychology  can  better 
now  than  then  meet  the  requirements  of  the  case. 

In  investigating  the  conditions  of  geometry  Kant  laid 
stress  on  the  two  facts  that  it  dealt  with  a  subject  of  which 
there  was  direct  intuition,  and  that  it  accomplished  its 
synthesis  by  actual  construction.     In  both  respects  he  must 


328  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

be  held  to  have  judged  rightly,  and  shown  great  insight 
beyond  his  predecessors.  The  psychology  of  that  day  — 
whether  that  of  Berkeley,  which  was  the  most  advanced  as 
regards  sense-perception,  or  any  that  Kant  himself  wrought 
out  before  he  entered  upon  the  line  of  critical  inquiry  which 
raised  him,  as  he  thought,  above  the  field  of  psychological 
research — took  no  account  of  any  intuition  but  that  of 
sensation  in  which  the  mind  remained  wholly  passive. 
Hence  it  became  necessary  for  Kant,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
ascribe  all  mental  activity  to  the  faculty  of  understanding  or 
intellect ;  and  having  to  provide  for  the  construction  of  figures 
a  priori,  he  did,  as  we  have  already  seen,  call  into  play  the 
intellectual  faculty  working  as  Productive  Imagination. 

But  modern  psychology  has  shown  that  empirical  intuition 
is  by  no  means  confined  to  sensation  in  which  the  mind's 
state  is  to  be  described,  with  Kant,  as  receptivity,  and  in 
which  the  bodily  organs  of  sense  are  also  passively  affected 
or  acted  upon.  There  is  a  direct  intuitive  consciousness 
when  the  muscular  organs  are  thrown  into  action  from  the 
brain  outwards,  and  in  such  circumstances  the  mental  state 
can  only  be  described  as  spontaneity  or  activity.  Intellectual 
action  there  is  as  little  in  this  latter  as  in  the  former  mode  of 
intuition,  or,  if  the  view  be  so  taken,  it  is  present  as  much  in 
the  first  as  in  the  second. 

Why  then,  for  the  sake  of  the  construction  necessary  in 
geometry,  resort  to  the  recondite  agency  of  Productive 
Imagination?  When  we  think  of  a  line,  says  Kant,  we 
draw  it  in  thought  by  a  motion  which  is  an  act  of  pure  subject. 
Be  it  so ;  but  to  have  intuition  of  a  line  we  can  also  draw  it, 
and  do  first  draw  it,  by  a  motion  which  is  an  act  of  muscle 
with  a  peculiar  state  of  consciousness  attached. 

Mere  empirical  intuition  this,  it  will  be  said,  and  incapable 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  329 

of  being  made  the  ground  of  judgments  holding  necessarily 
and  universally.  True,  it  is  empirical ;  but  that  it  is  incapable 
of  being  made  the  ground  of  all  that  geometry  in  fact  is,  is 
not  so  clear.  It  is  empirical  after  a  fashion  of  its  own  — 
a  fashion  very  different  from  that  of  sensation  proper.  Sen- 
sations, as  it  were,  come  or  happen  to  us;  are  had  under 
certain  circumstances  over  which  we  may  not  have  the  least 
control,  and  in  the  ab:ence  of  those  circumstances  are  not 
had.  That  is  the  true  note  of  what  Experience,  in  the 
despised  sense  of  the  word,  is.  How  different  our  expe- 
rience of  muscular  activity !  We  can  have  it  when  we  like, 
for  as  long  as  we  like,  as  varied  as  we  like  ;  and  when  we 
like,  we  can  cease  to  have  it.  What  more  does  Kant  get 
from  the  Productive  Imagination  in  the  way  of  intuition 
a  priori ? 

Then  it  is  an  experience  which  enfolds  and  circumscribes 
our  experiences  of  sensation  proper.  When  Kant  declares 
Space  to  be  the  Form  of  all  External  Sense  he  says  more 
than  the  truth ;  for  there  are  sensations  received  by  some  of 
the  external  senses  without  any  reference  to  space ;  or,  at  all 
events,  there  are  among  the  so-called  external  sensations 
great  differences  in  this  respect,  some  being  referred  altogether 
away  into  objects  as  qualities  thereof,  others  being  referred 
not  beyond  our  own  organs,  and  so  forth.  But  precisely  in 
as  far  as  any  sensations  have  a  reference  to  space,  in  so  far 
are  they  subject  to  modification  through  muscular  move- 
ments of  which  we  are  conscious ;  and  if  they  have  a  definite 
setting  in  space,  they  are  sensations  which  movements  of 
ours  may  bring  on,  and  which  movements  of  ours  may 
limit. 

It  is  now  a  psychological  commonplace  to  say  that  we 
apprehend  objects  as  spread  out  in  space  through  conscious 


33°  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

movements  of  our  members,  and  such  experience  renders 
account  of  their  extension  as  much  as  our  sensation  renders 
account  of  their  sensible  qualities.  We  may  think  away, 
says  Kant,  all  the  sensible  qualities  of  a  body,  but  not  ex- 
tension. If  he  means  its  determinate  extension  of  which 
we  had  experience  by  particular  conscious  muscular  move- 
ments, the  statement  is  not  true :  we  can  think  that  away  as 
well  as  the  rest.  If  he  means  space  generally  or  space 
altogether,  the  statement  is  irrelevant;  no  Experienlialist 
would  pretend  to  think  that  away,  in  thinking  away  any- 
thing belonging  to  a  particular  body.  Space  in  general  or 
space  altogether,  supposing  it  developed  by  experience,  was 
assuredly  not  got  with  the  experience  of  any  particular  body. 

Upon  what  varied  and  protracted  experience  it  may  be 
supposed  to  be  developed,  there  is  no  time  now  to  consider. 
Suffice  it  only  to  say  or  to  repeat  that  the  experience  is  such, 
in  comparison  with  the  experience  had  through  the  senses 
proper,  that  the  difference  of  result — I  mean  between  the 
appearance  of  space  and  appearance  in  space — is  not  at  all 
surprising.  And  scientific  determinations  made  of  it,  though 
they  need  not  have  that  absolute  character  ascribed  to  them 
which  Kant  claims  for  geometrical  propositions,  must  still  be 
allowed  a  character  of  relative  generality  and  priority  in  com- 
parison with  the  propositions  of  physical  science. 

It  is  enough  if  the  remarks  just  made  have  indicated  that 
Kant's  theory  of  Space  and  Geometry,  however  it  rose  high 
above  any  that  had  been  thought  out  before,  is  now  put  on 
iis  defence  and  has  a  hard  task  to  maintain  itself.  Yet  no 
theory  that  may  take  its  place  can  do  so  without  well  regard- 
ing all  that  it  involves.  Of  such  importance  the  part  of 
Kant's  critical  doctrine  which  we  have  now  considered  can 
never  be  robbed. 


xxviil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  331 

IV.     On  the  Nature  and  Conditions  of  Intellectual  Synthesis. 

We  now  come  to  the  most  difficult  part  of  Kant's  critical 
doctrine — the  part  at  least  that  has  commonly  been  found 
most  difficult,  and  of  which  even  the  general  import  has  mostly 
remained  sealed  to  the  English  thinkers  who  have  touched  it 
in  going  about  their  own  business.  In  the  Kritik  it  is  the 
subject  of  a  very  long  and  crooked  exposition,  enough  to 
daunt  the  resolution  of  many  who  are  not  weak.  Kant 
himself  found  it  the  hardest  part  of  all  his  task  to  think  out, 
and  was  after  all  so  little  satisfied  with  his  first  exposition  of 
it,  that  he  must  needs,  at  the  most  important  stage,  make 
another  attempt  in  his  second  edition — an  attempt  ending  in 
a  result  which  not  the  most  devoted  adherent  can  pronounce 
a  uniform  improvement.  It  is  the  part  of  his  doctrine 
where  we  seem  to  have  most  reason  to  be  thankful  for 
having  the  Prolegomena  to  bring  out  into  relief  the  points  of 
greatest  importance  from  the  surrounding  mass  of  subsidiary 
argument ;  and  we  shall  accordingly  begin  with  the  questions 
as  there  put  and  answered.  But  here,  even  more  than  before,  it 
is  impossible  to  confine  the  view  to  the  minor  work.  Unless 
resort  is  had  to  the  Kritik  itself,  the  strength  of  Kant's 
position,  with  its  elaborate  system  of  defences,  must  remain 
unknown.  Its  weak  points  also,  if  we  can  discover  such, 
must  then  become  more  apparent  when  he  is  seen  wrestling 
with  the  difficulties  which  he  was  too  acute  not  to  apprehend, 
and  too  honest  to  glide  over. 

The  general  question  as  put  in  the  Prolegomena  is  in  this 
form:  How  is  pure  Science  cf  Nature  possible ?  which,  as 
we  must  now  understand,  is  the  same  as  asking,  How  is  it 
possible  for  the  mind  to  determine  anything  necessarily  about 
Nature  ?     The  mind  does  so,  for  example,  when  it  declares 


332  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

that  every  event  must  have  a  cause ;  also  in  mathematical 
physics,  or  the  application  of  mathematics  to  nature,  the 
determinations  made  are  necessary.  About  the  fact,  in 
Kant's  opinion,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  we  may  at 
once  have  before  us  his  general  answer  to  the  question. 
Nature  could  never  become  the  subject  of  synthetic  judgment 
a  priori  if  for  our  knowledge  we  were  dependent  on  mere 
experience  that  comes  to  us  ;  in  other  words,  if  Nature  had 
an  existence  quite  independent  of  the  mind.  It  can  be 
known  as  it  is  known  only  if  the  mind,  which  so  judges 
a  priori,  itself  constitutes  or  makes  Nature. 

The  strain  of  this  answer  is  manifestly  similar  to  that  of 
the  solution  given  to  the  question  about  pure  Geometry. 
But  it  is  not  less  clear  that  the  circumstances  of  the  two 
questions  are  very  different.  The  mind  in  making  determi- 
nations of  space  by  intuition  a  priori  is,  in  Kant's  view,  in  no 
respect  dependent  on  experience.  True,  the  determinations 
when  made  are  valid  for  sensible  objects;  but  this  fact, 
which  makes  geometry  a  real  objective  science  and  has  to 
be  explained,  does  nothing  to  impair  its  purity  as  regards 
experience.  On  the  other  hand,  Nature  is  the  world  of 
Experience — the  complex  of  all  the  objects  of  Experience, 
as  Kant  himself  calls  it.  How  then  can  the  mind  make  or 
constitute  that  which  confessedly  it  has  to  acquire  ?  Or  how 
can  that  be  experience  which  the  mind,  in  order  to  know 
anything  about  it  a  priori,  must  constitute  ? 

Kant  meets  this  difficulty  also  by  a  further  application  of 
the  distinction  of  Form  and  Matter  before  employed  to 
account  for  Intuition  a  priori  of  Space  and  Time.  Such 
intuition  was  possible  because  it  bore  altogether  upon  the 
mere  form  of  sensibility,  which  is.  innate,  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  matter  of  sensation,  which  is  received  or  acquired. 


xxviii.]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  333 

In  like  manner  a  priori  determination  of  experience  will 
be  possible,  if  it  bears  altogether  upon  the  mere  form 
of  experience  to  the  exclusion  of  its  matter.  The  matter 
of  experience  is  the  variety  of  phenomena  constituted  of 
sensations  received  in  Space  and  Time,  and  this  matter 
cannot  but  be  empirically  got;  but  Nature  is  more  than 
a  variety  of  phenomena.  We  have  just  spoken  of  Nature 
as  a  complex  of  objects,  meaning  that  the  objects  are  in 
fixed  relations  with  one  another — are  connected — bound  up 
together.  Otherwise  expressed,  Nature  is  the  complex  of 
the  objects  of  experience  constituted  through  or  according 
to  fixed  laws.  Formally,  it  is  the  system  of  laws.  These 
laws  in  so  far  as  necessary — which  is  to  say,  the  form  of 
experience — cannot  be  acquired  as  matter  of  experience  is. 
The  only  alternative  is  that  the  form  must  be  innate — that 
the  necessary  laws  of  experience  spring  from  the  mind ; 
and  that  experience,  in  the  full  and  effective  sense  that  is 
meant  when  we  speak  of  Nature,  is  constituted  by  the  mind 
imposing  laws  upon  phenomena. 

•  ••••• 

Now  the  Prolegomena  says  shortly  that  judgments  of 
perception  or  merely  subjective  associations  (e.  g.  '  when  the 
sun  shines  on  the  stone  it  grows  warm')  are  turned  into 
judgments  of  experience  or  objective  conjunctions  holding 
necessarily  for  all  (e.g.  'the  sun  warms  the  stone')  by  the 
addition  of  concepts  having  their  origin  a  priori  in  the 
understanding.     This  is  fully  explained  only  in  the  Kritik  \ 

The  truly  fundamental  question  at  this  stage  with  Kant 
is  as  to  the  nature  and  conditions  of  intellectual  symhes.s — 

1  Read  Transcendental  Logic,  first  division  ;  especially  Book  I  of 
Transcendental  Analytic.     Cf  supra,  Lect  XIII.  — Ed. 


334  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

at  all  stages  indeed,  but  more  especially  now  at  this.  The 
general  problem  of  the  Critical  Philosophy,  How  are 
synthetic  judgments  a  priori  possible  ?  showed  it  to  be  so 
everywhere.  In  the  Prolegomena  the  first  special  inquiry, 
How  is  pure  mathematics  possible?  raised  a  question  of 
synthesis.  The  second  special  inquiry,  as  to  Science  of 
Nature,  raises  it  again.  In  the  first  part  of  the  Kritik  (the 
Transcendental  Aesthetic)  the  question  was  submerged,  only 
to  come  forth  expressly  now.  What  was  the  result  of  the 
Transcendental  Aesthetic  ?  That  all  sensations  are  received 
by  the  mind  in  the  form  of  Time,  and  external  sensations 
farther  in  the  form  of  Space.  In  Sense  the  mind  is  passively 
affected,  and  not  less  so,  because  the  affection  takes  place 
under  conditions  that  are  fixed  in  its  nature.  There  is,  in 
Kant's  view,  no  synthesis  in  the  faculty,  or,  as  we  should 
more  properly  call  it,  the  capacity,  of  Sense.  Synthesis 
means  activity — Spontaneity  as  opposed  to  Receptivity — and 
in  Sense  the  mind  is  not  active  at  all.  But  the  mind  can 
act — can  combine ;  manifests  another  faculty  truly  to  be 
called  such — the  faculty,  namely,  of  Thought  or  Understand- 
ing. That  faculty  also  will  have  its  fixed  conditions,  as  the 
other  had.  The  mind  will  think  in  a  determinate  way,  as 
it  was  shown  to  be  in  a  determinate  way  liable  to  be  sensibly 
affected,  and  by  reason  of  its  native  constitution  in  the  one 
case  as  in  the  other.  To  discover  the  a  priori  conditions 
under  which  the  mind  thinks  or  performs  synthesis — that  is 
the  second  part  of  the  critical  task. 

Kant  wrought  out  the  theory  with  infinite  pains  in  revul- 
sion from  the  scepticism  of  Hume.  The  force  of  all  that 
Hume  had  urged  as  to  the  impossibility  of  finding  outside 
the  mind  a  ground  of  order  and  connexion  among  things  he 


xxvin.]    Elements  of  General  Philozophy.  335 

was  constrained  to  allow ;  but  while  Hume  was  content  to 
rest  all  upon  mere  subjective  custom — a  tendency  to  imagine 
upon  the  strength  of  past  experience — Kant's  interest  in 
science  of  nature,  if  nothing  else,  impelled  him  to  find  some 
surer  foundation.  Nothing  besides  was  more  obvious  than 
that  Hume,  in  his  dialectical  handling  of  Cause  in  Nature, 
was  touching  but  one  side  of  a  much  greater  question — the 
question  of  objective  knowledge  generally;  and  no  less  a 
question  than  this,  in  all  its  aspects,  could  Kant  stop  short  of 
raising  and  trying  to  settle.  The  world  had  never  seen  the 
attempt  made  with  such  consciousness  of  its  full  import 
before. 

It  was  made  by  Kant  upon  assumptions  both  as  to  fact 
and  principle  that  drew  a  clear  line  of  separation  between 
him  and  Experientialism,  which  had  spent  itself  for  the  time 
in  the  scepticism  of  Hume.  But  Experientialism  girt  itself 
again  to  the  task  of  positive  explanation,  and  stands  now  in 
a  very  different  position  from  where  it  stood  when  Kant 
sought  to  take  away  the  very  ground  from  beneath  its  feet. 
What  is  known  as  the  Associationist  school  in  psychology — 
which  connects  itself,  doubtless,  through  Hume  with  Berkeley 
and  Locke,  but  which  made,  as  it  were,  a  new  start  after 
Hume  in  Hartley  and  the  elder  Mill — has  expressly  aimed 
in  this  generation  at  rendering  an  account  of  Objective 
Experience.  And  in  particular  the  theory  of  scientific  know- 
ledge of  nature,  which  was  Kant's  first  care,  has  found 
among  Experientialists  in  the  younger  Mill  one  who  made 
it  his  chief  object  of  philosophic  concern.  Mill's  System  of 
Logic  indeed,  however  different  its  aspect  first  and  last,  does 
attempt  from  its  own  point  of  view  a  task  corresponding  with 
that  of  Kant's  Transcendental  Logic.  Through  Mill  the 
conception  of  a  Real  or  Material  Logic  as  opposed  to  one 


336  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

purely  Formal,  has  become  familiar  to  English  minds ;  and 
a  Real  or  Material  Logic  is  what,  from  his  own  principles, 
Kant  gave  in  his  Transcendental  Analytic .  Let  this  be  well 
understood,  that  with  its  own  lights,  and  in  the  light  more- 
over of  advancing  science,  the  present  English  school  has 
made  it  its  object  to  give  all  that  satisfaction  which  Kant 
failed  to  find  in  the  thought  of  the  English  school  before  his 
day,  and  set  himself  to  supply  upon  a  different  line  of  inves- 
tigation. With  what  present  success,  and  yet  with  what 
remaining  obligation  to  ponder  now,  since  it  did  not  ponder 
earlier,  Kant's  extraordinary  work,  I  have  already  tried  to 
suggest.  I  have  greatly  failed  if  I  have  not  conveyed  such  a 
notion  of  the  reach  and  profundity  of  that  work  as  to  make  the 
obligation  apparent.  Quite  apart  from  the  validity  of  Kant's 
principles  or  assumptions,  there  is,  in  his  appreciation  of  the 
problems  to  be  grappled  with  for  the  explanation  of  objective 
knowledge,  a  depth  of  insight  which  later  inquirers  might 
have  profited,  and  still  have  to  profit,  by. 

The  side  of  Kant's  doctrine  now  before  us  on  which 
it  is  most  open  to  remark  or  exception,  is  where  he  dis- 
tinguishes the  two  faculties  of  Sense  and  Thought.  Nothing 
could  more  cast  suspicion  upon  the  distinction — amounting 
to  opposition — as  he  puts  it,  than  the  heroic  nature  of  the 
effort  necessary  to  bring  the  two  again  together.  That  the 
two  should  be  brought  together  was  of  the  very  essence  of 
his  general  doctrine  :  this  we  have  seen  already,  and  it  will 
still  more  decisively  be  seen  another  time  in  his  criticism  of 
metaphysic  as  the  science  of  the  supernatural,  or  his  criticism 
of  the  rational  faculty  claiming  to  think  without  reference  to 
empirical  intuition.  His  determination  to  bring  them  together 
marks  him  as  much  off  from  the  Rationalists,  as,  upon  the 
other  side,  his  manner  of  distinguishing  them  separated  him 


xx viil]    Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  337 

from  the  Experientialists.  But  what  is  the  result  of  the 
effort  ?  An  opposition  like  that  between  Sense,  in  which  the 
mind  is  merely  receptive,  and  Thought,  in  which  the  mind  is 
all  active,  cannot  be  got  rid  of  by  placing  Imagination  between 
the  two,  and  declaring  that  on  the  one  side  it  partakes  of  the 
character  of  the  one,  and  that  on  the  other  side  it  partakes 
of  the  character  of  the  other.  Or  if  it  can  be  so  got  rid  of 
and  there  is  no  contradiction  in  the  union  of  such  characters, 
then  the  two  extreme  faculties  have  been  unwarrantably 
thrust  apart,  and  there  is  no  occasion  for  spending  so  much 
pains  to  bring  them  together.  Either  way  there  is  something 
wrong  with  the  theory. 

The  pure  faculty  of  Imagination,  with  Kant,  does  in  truth 
everything  for  knowledge.  Wherever  synthesis  has  to  be 
operated — and  knowledge  is  a  synthesis — forth  steps  the 
ready-witted  agent  to  do  the  work,  and  never  in  vain.  With 
its  two  faces — one  towards  Sense,  the  other  towards  Thought — 
it  has  the  survey  of  all  and  acts  accordingly.  Nor  was  it  in 
Kant,  compared  with  his  predecessors  of  any  school,  a  small 
achievement  to  have  thus  set  knowledge  going  as  from  one 
mainspring.  He  did  set  it  going.  He  did  not  only  say : — 
'  In  knowledge  there  is  this  and  this,  as  is  plainly  to  be  seen,' 
but  he  showed  how  it  might  come  to  be,  and  proceed. 
It  is  another  question  whether  he  succeeded  in  finding  the 
truest  expression  of  the  process  when  he  called  it  an  act  of 
pure  subject.  Let  me  recall  what  I  have  said  or  suggested  on 
a  former  occasion  as  to  the  now  extended  view  of  the  sources 
of  psychological  experience,  particularly  as  to  our  direct 
consciousness  of  muscular  movement.  That  has  a  bearing 
upon  the  development  of  our  physical  experience  not  less 
than  upon  that  of  our  apprehension  of  space  and  form.  We 
cannot  move  without  having  passive  sensations  along  with 

z 


338  Elements  of  General  Philosophy. 

our  consciousness  of  the  movement;  we  cannot  receive 
passively  the  sensations  that  enter  into  our  apprehension  of 
objects  without  executing  actual  movements.  Is  not  the 
beginning  of  synthesis  to  be  sought  here  ?  To  justify  the 
answer  '  Yes,'  a  far  more  elaborate  argument  is  necessary 
than  any  experiential  psychologist  has  yet  attempted  to  work 
out,  but  it  is  one  for  which  the  psychology  of  the  present 
time  is  preparing.  When  it  is  made,  the  attempt  will  have 
the  better  chance  of  being  successful,  if  Kant's  profound 
explanation  of  objective  experience  is  at  no  point  ignored. 


LECTURE   XXIX. 

on  kant's  critical  philosophy  (continued). 

V.     The  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason. 

The  general  result  of  Kant's  Transcendental  Analytic,  so 
far  as  it  is  negative,  has  been  sufficiently  caught,  and  been 
passed  on  as  a  commonplace,  in  later  English  philosophy, 
agreeing,  as  it  practically  does,  with  the  result  attained  in 
their  own  way  by  the  English  inquirers  themselves.  But  the 
result  of  Kant's  thought,  so  far  as  it  is  positive — his  explana- 
tion, namely,  of  objective  experience  with  the  consequences 
flowing  therefrom  as  to  the  character  of  Science  of  Nature — 
has  been  only  imperfectly  apprehended,  for  want  of  the 
patience  requisite  to  follow  the  threads  of  an  investigation 
which  the  nature  of  the  subject  more  than  any  fault  of  his 
renders  extremely  complex.  In  that  positive  doctrine  of 
pure  knowledge  by  way  of  understanding,  however,  lies 
Kant's  highest  claim  to  philosophical  importance. 

It  is,  however,  in  as  far  as  it  is  negative  that  we  are  now 
to  be  concerned  about  the  general  result.  Let  it  be 
remembered  that  the  object  of  the  whole  critical  inquiry  was 
to  test  the  pretensions  of  Metaphysic  to  be  a  science  of  the 
supernatural ;  orj  in  the  other  language  employed  by  Kant, 
to  discover  whether  by  pure  Reason  anything  can  be  deter- 
mined regarding  that  of  which  there  can  be  no  experience. 

Z    2 


34-o  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

We  have  seen  how,  in  Kant's  view,  there  is  a  wholly  pure 
or  rational  science  of  mathematics,  applicable  to  the  world 
of  experience;  also,  to  cenain  lengths,  a  pure  or  rational 
science  of  nature,  which  is  the  realm  of  ordered  experience. 
What  then  of  metaphysic  which  professedly  deals  with  all 
that  transcends  experience  ?  Can  pure  Reason  determine 
anything  synthetically  in  that  region — speak  positively  and  at 
the  same  time  with  a  real  meaning  there  ?  The  mere  want 
of  experience  would  not  seem  to  be  a  bar  against  such 
knowledge  of  the  supernatural.  Mathematics,  in  which 
Reason  proceeds  by  way  of  pure  intuition,  depends  upon  no 
experience — is  not  knowledge  of  anything  given  in  experience* 
Yes,  but  mark  the  difference.  Mathematical  science,  while 
it  is  intuitive,  extends  only  to  the  form  of  things,  and 
determines  nothing  as  to  their  real  nature.  For  the  know- 
ledge of  that  we  are  dependent  upon  sensible  experience,  so 
that  our  knowing  consists  farther  only  in  the  interpreting  and 
ordering  of  this  under  certain  pure  concepts  which  are 
expressions  for  the  varied  functions  of  the  mind's  synthetic 
activity. 

Now,  unless  it  is  asserted  that  we  have  pure  intuitive 
knowledge  of  things  metaphysical — which  can  only  mean 
that  we  have  the  power  constructively  to  generate  them,  in 
other  words,  to  create  them,  as  is  the  case  with  mathematical 
figures — and  this  nobody  maintains,  it  is  clear  that  our 
knowledge  of  these  also  must  proceed  by  way  of  general 
thinking  or  comprehension ;  and  then  it  does  become 
important  whether  we  have  hold  of  anything  to  think  about. 
In  physical  knowledge  or  common  objective  experience  we 
have  matter  for  thought  in  the  affections  of  sense  which  we 
receive,  and  when  this  is  elaborated  through  the  action  of 
understanding  the  result   is  knowledge.     Is   metaphysic  in 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  341 

like  manner,  or  in  any  corresponding  manner,  knowledge,  or 
^  it  only  mere  thinking  ? 

It  is,  then,  with  physical  knowledge  or  knowledge  of  Nature 
— not  mathematics — that  Metaphysic  must  be  compared. 
Physical  knowledge  is  a  knowledge  of  things  or  objects  :  but 
objects  of  what  sort  ?  Let  us  see,  working  backwards  from 
the  posiiion  we  have  reached.  Objects  were  constituted  such 
in  relation  to  pure  self-consciousness — under  pure  concepts 
of  the  understanding — within  schemata  developed  by  the 
pure  faculty  of  imagination ;  and  what  were  they  else,  that  is 
to  say,  previous  to  being  so  constituted?  A  variety  of 
sensations,  which  are  subjective  affections,  received  within 
the  subjective  forms  of  Space  and  Time.  We  see  that  even 
when  the  part  of  intellect  or  understanding  is  left  out  of 
account,  the  matter  of  knowledge  is  purely  subjective — is 
something  which  appears  to  the  senses — is  Phenomenon. 
Knowledge  must  thus  be  declared  to  be  of  phenomena  only. 
Outside  of  this  subjective  circle  we  cannot  get.  However, 
then,  we  may  be  able  to  make  universal  and  necessary 
determinations  about  phenomena — and  that  we  can  do  so  is 
the  positive  result  of  Kant's  investigation  so  far — we  make 
them  about  nothing  but  phenomena.  This  is  the  general 
result  on  its  negative  side.  How  should  we  be  able  to  pass 
outside  the  circle  of  sensible  appearances  ?  We  may,  indeed, 
says  Kant,  be  quite  sure  that  the  sensible  appearances  portend 
somewhat  else ;  we  may  have  most  sufficient  reasons  for 
denying  that  the  phenomena  are  mere  illusion  and  show — 
Kant,  as  was  said  before,  vehemently  resents  the  imputation 
that  he  could  suppose  them  such ;  we  may — nay,  we  must — 
conceive  of  Things-in-themselves  as  the  real  ground  of 
things  as  they  appear  to  our  sensibility,  and  because  they  are 
conceived  call  them  Noilmena  by  opposition  to  Phenomena. 


342  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

It  matters  not,  so  far  as  knowledge  of  ours  is  concerned  :  at 
least  it  matters  not,  so  far  as  any  knowledge  is  concerned 
that  goes  beyond  mere  conviction  that  they  are.  What 
Things-in-themselves  are,  we  cannot  know.  We  can  know 
them  only  as  they  sensibly  affect  us,  and  then  they  are  no 
longer  Things-in-themselves.  We  do,  however,  know  some- 
thing of  what  they  are  not.  They  are  not  in  Space  or  Time ; 
for  Space  and  Time  are  mere  subjective  forms  of  our  sensibility 
and  contain  sensations  only.  Neither  have  the  Categories 
any  application  to  them  ;  for  the  Categories  have  application 
through  the  transcendental  scheme  only  to  what  is  given  in 
Time.  Thus  the  conception  of  Things-in-themselves  is  one" 
wholly  devoid  of  positive  meaning ;  and  knowledge  is 
confined  to  that  of  which  there  is  experience,  actual  or 
possible.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  sensible  experience  to 
be  knit  up  into  knowledge  through  the  Categories,  and  we 
have  no  other  matter  of  experience  to  be  knit  up.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Categories  are  there  as  pure  forms,  empty  till 
there  comes  matter  to  fill  them — bare  functions  effecting 
nothing  till  sense  gives  them  that  upon  which  they  may  set 
to  work. 

Metaphysic  as  a  general  science  of  the  supernatural,  of 
things  whereof  there  can  be  no  experience — general  because 
it  employs  concepts — is  upon  that  showing  impossible. 

But,  however  it  may  be  with  metaphysic  as  a  science  of 
the  supernatural,  if  there  is  one  thing  clearer  than  another, 
it  is  that  men  will  not,  and  even  cannot,  rest  shut  up  within 
the  circle  of  actual  or  possible  experience ;  they  will  put  out 
from  their  island,  as  Kant  calls  it,  for  a  land — a  very  different 
land — beyond  the  sea.  That  region,  which  they  cannot  find, 
they  will  conceive  of  as  they  can,  peopling  it  with  thoughts 
and  fancies  to  stand  for  objects  or  real  beings  there.     In 


xxix.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  343 

other  words  Metaphysic  is  a  natural  and  ineradicable 
tendency  of  human  reason.  No  conviction  as  to  the  limits 
of  knowledge,  founded  upon  such  an  inquiry  as  has  now 
been  carried  through,  can  avail  to  prevent  it.  Nor  can  any 
critical  inquiry,  even  when  directed  to  Metaphysic  itself, 
avail  to  stem  it.  But  direct  criticism  may,  notwithstanding, 
be  of  use  to  expose  once  for  all  the  true  character  of  the 
tendency  and  to  call  off  the  mind  to  other  pursuits,  this  one 
being  seen  to  be  vain.  Therefore  Kant  proceeds  to  subject 
to  the  closest  scrutiny  the  metaphysical  dogmas  set  out  by 
previous  thinkers,  especially  those  of  Wolff,  the  most  syste- 
matic dogmatist  of  all.  In  one  sense,  as  has  already  been 
more  than  once  observed,  this  part  of  the  critical  doctrine  is 
his  crowning  labour.  Equally,  however,  may  it  be  urged 
that  such  scrutiny  is  entered  on  as  affording  the  best  test 
of  his  positive  theory  of  objective  knowledge  wrought  out 
before.  At  one  stage  in  particular  this  will  be  seen  to  be 
the  uppermost  thought  on  Kant's  mind — namely,  in  the 
famous  doctrine  of  the  Antinomies. 

In  the  Kritik,  the  question  now  presents  itself  in  this 
shape  : — Is  Thought  by  itself  knowledge  ?  Can  we  by  pure 
thinking,  without  reference  to  matter  of  intuition,  make 
synthetic  determination  a  priori  ?  The  part  of  Transcen- 
dental Logic  which  expounds  the  elements  of  pure  know- 
ledge by  way  of  thinking,  is  called  by  Kant  Transcendental 
Analytic,  and  is  a  Logic  of  Truth.  When,  without  regard  to 
the  material  element  of  Intuition,  the  mere  form  of  Thought 
is  made  to  give  an  illusion  or  show  of  knowledge. 
Transcendental  Logic  becomes  what  Kant  calls  dialectical. 
The  critical  scrutiny  of  such  dialectical  illusion  is  the  second 
part  of  this  Logic,  and  gets  the  name  of  Transcendental 
Dialectic.     It  is  in  the  main  a  critical  inquiry  into  the  faculty 


34+  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

of  Reason,  taken  in  the  special  sense  in  which  it  is  opposed 
to  the  faculty  of  Understanding.  Both  are  included  under 
the  general  faculty  of  Thought,  or  intellectual  combination 
through  general  notions,  but  they  differ  as  regards  the 
notions  they  employ  *. 

The  function  of  Reason  as  a  natural  faculty  of  mind, 
has  reference  to  all  such  knowledge  as  the  Understanding  is 
competent  to  attain  to.  The  knowledge  that  we  have  through 
Understanding  operating  on  the  manifold  of  sensations  is 
Ordered  Experience — a  knowledge  that  is  limited  every  way. 
The  experiences  limit  or  condition  one  another,  and  hence 
the  need  arises  to  have  them  brought  to  a  higher  intellectual 
unity.  In  the  processes  of  thought  as  exhibited  in  Formal 
Logic  Reasoning  or  Syllogism  has  the  function  wi.h 
reference  to  bare  judgment,  that  it  brings  a  conditioned 
under  its  condition.  And  in  like  manner,  argues  Kant, 
Reason  as  a  synthetic  faculty  has  laid  upon  it  the  obligation 
of  bringing  together  under  the  higher  conditions,  or  rather 
under  the  highest  possible  condition,  the  varied  knowledge 
operated  through  Understanding.  Short  of  the  condition 
which  is  itself  unconditioned  there  is  no  halting-place ;  for 
anything  less  only  leaves  occasion  for  the  same  work  of 
rational  interpretation  to  be  repeated.  Now,  seeing  that 
with  everything  given  as  conditioned  all  its  conditions  must 
at  the  same  time  be  supposed  given,  Reason  is  moved  to 
conceive  of  the  whole  sum  of  conditions  as  unconditioned 

1  By  '  faculty  of  Reason '  Kant  does  not  mean  that  which  he  calls 
'Pure  Reason'  in  the  title  of  his  work),  and  which  is  his  name 
for  the  general  faculty  of  knowledge  a  priori.  This,  in  the  result,  is 
shown  to  include  a  faculty  of  Pure  Intuition,  and  a  faculty  of  Under- 
standing through  pure  concepts  It  does  not  include,  or  it  includes 
only  upon  an  altogether  different  footing,  the  faculty  specially  called 
Reason  in  contradistinction  to  Understanding. 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  345 

ground  that  is  wanted  for  ultimate  intellectual  satisfaction. 
But  in  the  clear  impossibility  that  there  is  of  mustering 
and  keeping  hold  in  thought  such  an  endless  series  of  condi- 
tions, what  Reason  actually  does  is  to  make  an  object  out 
of  its  mere  notion  or  idea  of  the  Unconditioned ;  and  then, 
treating  this  as  if  it  were  an  actual  object  of  which  we  could 
have  experience,  Reason  would  make  use  of  it  to  give 
the  ultimate  theoretic  explanation  of  all  that  Experience 
does  in  fact  bring  to  view.  Such,  in  the  most  condensed 
form,  is  a  representation  of  Kant's  view  of  the  function  and 
procedure  of  the  faculty  of  Reason  with  regard  to  human 
knowledge  in  general.  It  may  now  be  understood  how  the 
Criticism  in  detail  will  consist  in  the  exposure  of  a  tendency 
which,  however  natural,  gives  a  mere  pretence  of  real 
knowledge. 

Kant,  by  a  new  stroke  of  subtle  refining,  seeks  to  show 
that  just  because  there  are  three  and  only  three  forms  of 
syllogistic  reasoning  in  pure  logic,  so  the  faculty  of  Reason, 
in  its  synthetic  operation  upon  the  knowledge  got  by  under- 
standing, develops  three  pure  concepts  or — as  he  prefers,  in 
view  of  their  peculiar  nature  and  use,  to  call  them — Ideas 
as  functions  of  unity.  Commentators  have  often  and  justly 
remarked  that  this  exercise  of  his  subtlety,  if  open  to  no 
other  exception,  is  thrown  away.  In  truth  he  had  Wolff's 
system  of  dogmatic  Metaphysic  before  him,  and  there  within 
the  general  doctrine  of  pure  Being  or  Ontology  he  found 
wrought  out  a  rational  doctrine  of  Soul  or  Psychology,  of 
the  World  or  Cosmology,  and  of  God  or  Theology.  Being, 
with  Wolff,  was  either  Matter  or  Spirit,  and  Spirit  was  either 
finite  like  the  human  soul  or  infinite  as  God.  Then  Wolff 
only  set  out  systematically  the  subjects  that  all  metaphysicians 
had  been   confidently  reasoning  about ;    and  Kant,  for  his 


346  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

task  of  criticism,  had  here  no  need  of  other  clue  to  guide 
him.  Was  the  question  one  as  to  Metaphysic  claiming  to 
be  a  science  of  all  that  was  most  truly  real  ?  The  World  as 
macrocosm,  the  Soul  as  microcosm,  and  the  Deity  as  ground 
of  both,  were  by  universal  acknowledgment  the  unseen  and 
deeper  realities  whose  nature  was  to  be  rationally  expressed. 
Was  the  question  as  to  the  faculty  of  Reason  working  to 
interpret  by  its  Ideas,  or  from  out  its  Ideas  to  develop, 
all  lower  knowledge  related  to  experience  ?  These  and  no 
others  in  their  rational  expression  were  the  parent-con- 
ceptions of  all. 

The  Rational  Psychology  of  Wolff  and  other  metaphy-' 
sicians,  when  it  seeks  to  determine  the  essential  nature  of 
the  Soul  or  thinking  principle,  and  thence  to  afford  the 
explanation  of  all  mental  experience,  involves,  according  to 
Kant,  in  every  one  of  its  affirmations  a  Paralogism  or  Fallacy 
of  Pure  Reason.  The  doctrine  asserts  (1)  that  the  Soul  is 
a  thinking  or  immaterial  Substance;  (2)  that  it  is  a  Simple 
Substance,  and  so  not  liable  to  dissolution  ;  (3)  that  it  is 
a  substance  always  identical  with  itself,  in  other  words, 
a  Person;  (4)  that  it  has  an  existence  apart  from  other 
things,  though  able  to  enter  into  relation  with  Body.  In  the 
case  of  every  one  of  those  assertions  the  fallacy  consists  in 
the  Reason  making  a  real  thing  or  entity  out  of  that  pure 
consciousness  of  self  which,  for  him,  was  involved  in  every 
act  of  thinking. 

Logically  regarded,  self  is  the  subject  to  which  all  thinking 
is  referred,  but  logical  subject'is  not  the  same  as  real  sub- 
stance. So,  in  thinking,  self  is  undoubtedly  to  be  regarded 
as  simple  with  reference  to  the  manifold  which  is  bound 
together;  again,  as  one  and  the  same  while  the  manifold 
varies:   once  more,  as  distinct  from  all  else  which  comes 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  347 

before  it.  But,  argues  Kant,  all  this  proves  nothing  what- 
ever as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  soul.  Accordingly  all 
speculations  based  upon  the  metaphysical  assertions  thus 
shown  to  be  false  conclusions  from  the  facts  and  conditions 
of  phenomenal  consciousness  have  no  warrant.  Immortality, 
for  example,  cannot  be  established  by  any  effort  of  Specu- 
lative Reason.  As  little,  however,  can  any  assertions  running 
counter  to  the  foregoing  be  upheld.  Materialism  in  its 
principles,  and  in  its  conclusion  against  immortality,  can  by 
no  possibility  be  proved.  As  regards  immortality  upon  which 
interest  is  here  centred,  the  result  of  the  critical  inquiry  is 
that  no  valid  reason  of  the  theoretic  sort  can  be  given  either 
for  or  against  it ;  and  as  there  can  be  none  against  it,  it  is 
open  to  be  proved  upon  other  grounds. 

When  Reason,  acting  upon  its  general  idea  of  the  Uncon- 
ditioned, proceeds  next  to  interpret  the  phenomena  of  Nature 
or  the  mind's  Objective  Experience,  it  involves  itself  in  diffi- 
culties of  quite  another  cast.  Taking  phenomena  on  the 
side  of  their  conditions,  and  impelled  to  conceive  of  these  in 
their  totality  or  completeness,  it  goes  beyond  experience  and 
thinks  a  world  or  cosmos  as  a  separate  whole.  The  start 
here  is  from  experience,  but  in  every  way  the  extension  made 
is  such  that  experience  can  never  come  up  with  it.  So,  under 
the  four  heads  of  Categories  through  which  experience  is 
constituted,  absolute  determination  is  made  of  the  world  in 
four  ways.  It  is  asserted  (1)  to  have  absolute  beginning 
in  Time  and  bounds  in  Space ;  (2)  to  be  compounded,  in 
respect  of  its  sensible  reality,  of  parts  absolutely  simple; 
(3)  to  involve  causes  which  act  with  absolute  freedom  in  no 
necessary  dependence  upon  one  another ;  (4)  to  imply  the 
existence  of  an  absolutely  necessary  Being  as  eiiher  part 
or  cause. 


34-3  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

But  however  cogent  be  the  reasons  that  are  assigned  for 
these  assertions  from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  dogmatism 
whence  they  are  made,  the  strange  fact  presents  itself  tl  at, 
from  another  point  of  view,  precisely  opposite  assertions  can 
be  made  and  upon  grounds  of  reason  not  a  whit  less  strong, 
(i)  The  world  is  as  to  Time  and  Space  infinite;  (2)  there  is 
nothing  simple,  but  everything  without  exception  is  com- 
posite ;  (3)  there  is  no  freedom,  but  everything  happens 
according  to  natural  law ;  (4)  nothing  exists  that  is  abso- 
lutely necessary. 

On  the  one  hand,  in  the  series  of  conditions,  a  first  is 
taken  as  itself  unconditioned  and  made  the  absolute  ground* 
of  the  series ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  series  itself  that  is 
taken   as  unconditioned.      Either   course   may  be  justified 
equally  and  developed  to  its  consequences. 

Such  is  a  brief  representation  of  what  Kant  calls  the 
Antinomy  of  Pure  Reason,  and  nothing,  he  declares,  is  so 
much  calculated  to  pull  it  up  in  its  headlong  course  of  spe- 
culative interpretation.  Once  give  Reason  way,  and  it  cannot 
help  becoming  thus  divided  against  itself.  Criticism  is  the 
only  means  of  filling  up  the  breach — of  composing  the  strife. 
To  be  able  so  to  do  is,  with  Kant,  the  true  test  of  any  philo- 
sophical theory  of  knowledge,  and  none  but  his  own  can 
withstand  it.  As  thus : — The  Antinomies  fall  into  two 
classes — the  first  two  to  be  called  Mathematical,  the  other 
two  Dynamical,  in  the  same  sense  as  that  in  which  those 
terms  were  used  to  distinguish  the  Principles  of  Pure  Under- 
standing. In  the  Mathematical  Antinomies  the  uncondi- 
tioned in  either  form  of  it  is  homogeneous  with  the 
conditioned  which  it  is  set  up  to  explain ;  thus  in  the  first 
Antinomy,  the  world,  whether  taken  as  infinite  or  absolutely 
bounded  in  space,  is  conceived  after  the  fashion  of  things  which 


xxix.]       Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  349 

we  have  sensible  experience  of  in  space.  In  the  other  class 
of  Antinomies  the  unconditioned  and  conditioned  need  not 
be  thus  homogeneous  ;  a  cause  may  be  of  a  nature  quite  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  its  effect.  Now  where  the  unconditioned 
and  conditioned  are  alike,  the  two  opposed  assertions  in  the 
Antinomy  are  contradictory  and  exclude  one  another;  not 
one  only,  however,  but  both  must  be  held  false.  For,  as  we 
know  that  it  is  only  phenomena  that  are  in  Space  and  Time, 
and  these  pure  forms  of  our  sensibility  have  no  application 
to  things  in  themselves,  the  world  of  Reason,  which  is  not 
the  world  of  Experience,  cannot  possibly  have  ascribed  to 
it  either  infinity  or  absolute  limitation  in  the  one  or  the 
other  form. 

The  second  Antinomy  is  to  be  resolved  likewise.  Divi- 
sion in  space  has  application  only  to  phenomena  of  which 
there  is  experience,  and  takes  place  as  there  is  experience  of 
it :  the  opposite  views  err  alike  in  misconceiving  the  world  of 
sensible  experience  for  a  world  of  things-in-themselves,  or  in 
applying  to  the  latter  language  which  has  a  meaning  only 
in  relation  to  the  former.  Different  is  the  resolution  to  be 
made  of  the  Antinomies  of  the  other  class.  Here  the 
counter-assertions  are  verbally  opposed,  but  may  both  be 
true  in  a  different  application.  It  is  quite  possible  that  all 
phenomena  may  be  connected  with  other  phenomena  as 
their  cause,  and  so  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect  in  nature 
be  unbroken,  and  yet  that  they  should  depend  on  causes 
working  freely  in  the  intelligible  world  of  Noiimena  or 
things-in-lhemselves.  So,  again,  it  may  well  be  that  there  is 
nothing  within  the  realm  of  phenomena  that  is  not  subject  in 
every  way  to  conditions,  and  yet  there  may  exist  intelligibly 
an  absolutely  necessary  being — the  unconditional  ground  of 
all  that  appears. 


35°  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

Kant's  conclusion,  then,  is  that,  if  not  sought  within  the 
sphere  of  phenomena,  free  agency  or  freedom  of  will  is 
possible,  also  that  no  argument  from  experience  can  exclude 
the  possibility  of  an  absolute  being — the  supernatural  cause 
of  Nature.  But  he  proceeds  to  show  that,  when  Speculative 
Reason,  planting  itself  wholly  outside  of  Experience,  seeks  to 
determine  Being  in  general,  and  turns  its  subjective  Ideal  of 
Being  brought  to  highest  unity  into  an  objective  existence, 
including  all  reality  and  perfection,  moreover  conceived  as 
a  person,  the  step,  regarded  from  the  critical  point  of  view, 
is  wholly  inadmissible.  As  if  conscious  of  the  uncertainty  of 
the  step,  Reason,  in  the  way  of  Speculative  Theology,  has 
sought  to  justify  it  by  a  variety  of  arguments ;  and  Kant 
accordingly  subjects  these,  known  as  the  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  Deity,  to  a  scrutiny  which  remains  for  ever 
memorable. 

The  proofs  commonly  given  are  brought  to  three — (i)  the 
a  priori  or  ontological  argument,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
concept  or  idea  of  Deity;  (2)  the  cosmological  argument, 
from  the  contingent  existence  of  things  actual  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  necessary  being  as  their  ground ;  (3)  the  physico- 
theological,  also  called  the  teleological,  argument,  from  the 
evidences  of  design  in  nature  to  an  intelligent  First  Cause 
or  Creator. 

In  the  last  resort,  according  to  Kant,  all  depends  on  the 
validity  of  the  a  priori  or  ontological  proof.  The  argument 
from  Design,  however  striking  and  forcible,  does  not  take  us 
beyond  Nature,  or,  even  supposing  it  to  do  so,  cannot  prove 
the  supernatural  cause  to  be  one  and  absolute.  At  least  it 
cannot  do  this  of  itself  without  the  help  of  the  second  or 
cosmological  argument  from  contingent  to  necessary  exist- 
ence ;  while  that  in  turn  labours  under  the  defect  that  the 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  351 

necessary  existence  has  still  to  be  proved  the  Being  inclusive 
of  all  reality  and  perfection.  Does  then  the  conception  of 
a  Being  as  most  real  and  perfect  prove  the  existence  thereof? 
Yes,  it  is  argued,  because  it  would  be  contradictory  to  sup- 
pose such  a  Being  non-existent,  or,  again,  to  suppose  a  Being 
most  perfect,  if  the  attribute  of  existence  be  wanting.  But 
just  there,  Kant  urges,  lies  the  error.  Existence  is  no  attri- 
bute to  be  added  to  or  taken  from  a  concept :  the  content 
of  a  notion  remains  the  same,  whether  reality  is  ascribed  to  it 
or  not.  Real  existence  is  a  synthetic,  not  an  analytic  pre- 
dicate, the  ground  of  which  for  phenomena  is  sensible 
experience  received  by  us.  In  default  of  such  experience, 
impossible  in  the  case  of  a  being  not  phenomenal,  thought 
cannot  make  the  necessary  synthesis.  The  existence  can 
neither  be  begged  nor  proved. 

The  general  conclusion,  then,  to  which  Kant  is  brought 
is  that  the  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason  are  in  no  respect  principles 
constitutive  of  a  knowledge  beyond  experience,  as  the  Categories 
are  principles  or  rules  constitutive  of  experience.  Through 
the  Categories  objects  are  constituted  or  made,  and  they  may 
be  drawn  out  into  synthetic  propositions  a  priori  valid  for  all 
experience.  The  Ideas,  transcending  all  experience,  con- 
stitute nothing  objectively  for  want  of  appropriate  matter, 
such  as  sense  supplies  to  the  Categories;  and  drawn  out  into 
such  synthetic  propositions  a  priori  as  make  the  burden  of 
metaphysical  systems,  they  give  a  mere  pretence  of  know- 
ledge. Yet  are  they  not,  therefore,  of  no  account  for  our 
cognition?  Applied  to  experience  constituted  through  the 
Categories  or  pure  Concepts  of  Understanding  they  have 
a  regulative  function  of  the  highest  importance.  They  are 
constantly  directing  that  knowledge  had  through  under- 
standing be  brought,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  unity  and  system. 


352  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

They  are,  then,  so  many  problems  to  be  solved,  and  not  less 
effective  for  direction  or  regulation,  because  of  the  insight 
which  criticism  gives  into  the  theoretic  insolubility.  For 
example,  however  impotent  Speculative  Reason  may  be  to 
establish  an  absolute  First  Cause,  what  more  promotive  of 
systematic  scientific  knowledge  than  the  view  that  the  world 
is  one  and  the  work  of  a  Supreme  Reason  ? 

The  Kritik  of  Pure  Reason,  in  disallowing  a  science  of 
speculative  metaphysic,  after  explaining  and  justifying  the 
pure  science  of  mathematics  and  physics,  leaves  wholly 
problematical  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  free-will,  and  the 
existence  of  God,  to  demonstrate  which  was  the  metaphy- 
sician's highest  aim.  Often  Kant  has  been  understood  to 
demolish  all  three  assertions  as  pure  figments,  and  it  has 
been  charged  against  him  as  inconsistency  and  weakness 
that  he  forthwith  proceeded  upon  other  grounds  to  set  up 
again  what  no  one  so  triumphantly  as  he  had  overthrown. 
But  this  is  altogether  to  misconceive  the  man  and  his  work. 
We  see  him  in  his  earliest  period  of  speculative  confidence 
concerned  above  all  to  affirm  and  maintain  the  existence  of 
Deity,  and  again  years  after  Hume  had  destroyed  his  faith  in 
reason  at  all  other  points,  it  still  asserts  itself  in  him  with 
regard  to  this  central  position  of  all.  By-and-by,  indeed, 
when  embarked  on  his  own  critical  inquiry,  he  recovers  his 
faith  in  reason  at  other  points,  only  to  lose  it  here ;  but  there 
is  sufficient  evidence  in  his  work  and  otherwise  that,  however 
the  fearless  honesty  of  his  intellect  drove  him  to  resign  what 
most  he  had  cherished,  in  his  heart  he  cherished  it  still.  He 
leaves  this  question  and  the  others,  as  I  said,  problematical  ; 
which  means,  indeed,  that  the  answer  is  uncertain  theo- 
retically, but  that  an  answer  is  required.  And  if  an  answer 
in  the  affirmative  is  uncertain,  he  takes  quite  special  care  to 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philo  ophy.  353 

show  that  a  negative  answer  is  theoretically  no  more  certain 
either.  The  field  is  open  then  for  argument  other  than  of 
the  theoretic  sort. 

It  must  suffice  here  to  give  the  merest  indication  of  the 
way  in  which  Kant  was  able  to  attain  to  the  measure  of 
certainty  which  he  found  needful.  The  supernatural  shown 
by  the  Krilik  of  Pure  Reason  to  be  closed  against  man's 
speculative  insight,  is  disclosed  by  a  Krilik  of  Practical 
Reason  as  the  necessary  condition  of  man's  moral  action. 
There  is  in  human  consciousness  a  law  of  duty,  categorically 
imperative :  Act  so  that  the  maxim  of  thy  will  may  at  all 
times  become  a  universal  law  for  all.  The  law  is  there,  but 
how  can  man  so  act  ?  He  can  because  he  ought :  in  having 
the  duty  he  has  the  power :  he  must  have  the  power.  Free- 
will is  the  first  postulate  of  moral  action.  Now,  of  a  truth, 
it  is  not  as  man  is  a  natural  being  having  a  place  in  the 
world  of  phenomena  that  he  can  thus  act  freely  :  in  the  realm 
of  phenomena  everything  takes  place  according  to  a  neces- 
sary law  of  causality.  But  speculative  reason  was  good  for 
this  at  least  that  it  pointed  to  a  realm  of  intelligible  existence, 
of  which  it  could  be  said  affirmatively  that  it  did  exist  and 
negatively  that  it  was  not  subject  to  the  law  of  phenomena 
in  space  and  time.  The  Krilik  of  Pure  Reason  farther  solved 
the  third  antinomy  by  showing  that  it  could  well  be  that 
human  actions  should  be  determined  in  the  way  of  natural 
causation  by  phenomenal  circumstances,  and  yet  that  they 
should  be  at  every  stage  determined  quite  otherwise  across 
from  the  supernatural  sphere  in  which  a  law  of  freedom — of 
pure  self-determination — might  reign.  What  thus  theoretically 
was  possible,  the  fact  of  Duty  turns  into  necessary  assumption. 
Man  must  be  free  as  an  intelligible  being  or  Noiimenon ; 
and  it  is  upon  man   as  Phenomenon  that  the  law  of  Duty  is 


354  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [lect. 

imposed.  Freedom  of  Will  is  thus  the  great  postulate  of  the 
Practical  Reason.  But  the  Practical  Reason,  besides  enjoining 
a  law  of  Duty,  provides  also  a  final  end  of  action  in  the  idea 
of  an  unconditioned  Supreme  Good ;  and  man  being  a  sen- 
tient as  well  as  a  rational  being,  Happiness  as  we'll  as  Perfect 
Virtue  or  Moral  Perfection  must  be  involved  therein.  Now 
since  there  is  no  necessary  conjunction  of  the  two  in  nature, 
it  must  be  sought  otherwise.  It  is  found  in  postulating 
Immortality  and  God.  Immortality  is  required  to  render 
possible  the  attainment  of  moral  perfection.  Virtue  from 
respect  for  law,  with  a  constant  tendency  to  fall  away,  is^all 
that  is  attainable  by  man  in  this  life.  Moral  Perfection,  or 
complete  accommodation  of  the  Will  to  the  Moral  Law,  can 
be  attained  to  only  in  the  course  of  an  infinite  progression, 
which  means  personal  immortality.  God  must  farther  be 
postulated  as  the  ground  of  the  required  conjunction  of 
Happiness  with  Moral  Perfection.  Happiness  is  the  condition 
of  the  rational  being  in  whose  whole  ex:stence  all  goes  ac- 
cording to  wish  and  will ;  which  is  not  the  condition  of  man, 
for  in  him  observance  of  the  Moral  Law  is  not  conjoined  with 
any  power  of  disposal  over  the  laws  of  Nature.  But  as  Prac- 
tical Reason  demands  the  conjunction,  it  is  to  be  found  only 
in  a  Being,  the  author  at  once  of  Nature  and  of  the  Moral 
Law ;   and  this  is  God. 

This  part  of  Kant's  doctrine  has,  as  usual  with  him,  its 
two  aspects.  There  is  the  denial  of  any  speculative  know- 
ledge of  the  supernatural,  and  there  is— prepared  in  the 
Kriiik  of  Pure  Reason  and  consummated  in  the  Kritik  of 
Practical  Reason — the  assertion  that  there  are  grounds  for 
the  strongest  practical  conviction  of  it. 

It  is  easy  now,  as  Kant's  contemporaries  found  it  easy 
then,  to  lay  the  finger  upon  the  weak  place  in  this  two-sided 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  355 

theory.  The  Notimenon  or  Thing-in-itself,  the  unknowable 
ground  of  what  appears,  which  notwithstanding  from  the 
very  first  proves  to  be  so  far  knowable  and  known  that  its 
existence  is  most  positively  declared,  ends  by  having  much 
else  positively  affirmed  concerning  it.  It  is  namely  some- 
what in  its  nature  higher  and  better  than  the  phenomenon ; 
for  in  man  it  has  the  right  to  impose  on  his  phenomenal 
being  an  imperative  law  of  action.  It  also  is  a  cause  with 
reference  to  the  phenomenon  :  Kant's  whole  theory  of  sense 
as  a  receptivity  rests  upon  this  basis,  and  his  postulate  of 
human  freedom  under  his  solution  of  the  Third  Antinomy 
demands  it.  But  surely  here  transcendent  application  is 
made  of  a  category  whose  proper  sphere  of  application,  in 
Kant's  own  view,  is  experience.  It  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  thinkers  should  rest  in  such  a  conception  of  the 
Notimenon  as  unknowable.  Either  it  had  to  become  fully 
known  and  so  be  got  rid  of,  or  it  had  to  be  got  rid  of  by 
being  discounted.  Speculative  Reason  had  to  find  a  means 
of  surmounting  the  barriers  which  Kant  had  set,  or  need  was 
that  human  inquiry  should  withdraw  therefrom  and  frankly 
resign  itself  to  the  phenomenal.  Kant's  speculative  suc- 
cessors from  Fichte  to  Hegel  spent  themselves  in  the  former 
task,  and  their  efforts  left  little,  if  anything,  to  be  ever  after 
attempted  in  that  direction.  In  various  ways — by  the  pur- 
suit of  positive  science  and  the  resort  to  psychological  inquiry 
— others  have  taken  the  alternative  course — a  course  that 
from  the  nature  of  it  is  in  no  danger  of  being  too  speedily 
run. 

Kant  in  his  Kriiik  decided  for  ever — if  it  had  been  left, 
which  practically  it  was  not,  to  be  so  decided — that  verifiable 
knowledge  is  confined  to  the  region  of  phenomenal  expe- 
rience.     Practically  it  was  not  left  to  be  so   decided,  for 


35^  Elements  of  General  Philosophy.        [Lect. 

already  the  positive  sciences  had  advanced  too  far  to  be 
stayed  by  any  philosophic  theory.  Not  the  less,  however, 
was  such  a  comprehensive  theory  as  his  a  great  and  oppor- 
tune work  in  the  interest  of  the  sciences  themselves.  It  is 
not  all  scientific  men  that  are  aware,  even  as  regards  their 
own  special  science,  by  what  right  of  tenure  it  is  held ;  and 
even  superior  scientific  men  have  been  known,  off  the  line  of 
their  own  special  science,  to  have  curious  ideas  as  to  the 
possibilities  of  human  knowledge,  from  which  a  course  of 
the  Critical  Philosophy,  better  than  anything  else,  would  have 
saved  them.  Kant,  by  his  profound  analysis  of  the  conditions 
of  knowledge,  established  once  for  all  in  what  directions  and 
within  what  limits  it  could  be  had.  Nor,  because  he  thought 
it  possible  to  determine  a  priori  the  general  principles  of 
physical  science,  were  these  principles  of  aught  but  phe- 
nomenal experience.  Besides,  it  was  the  science  of  external 
nature  only  that  he  thus  made  bold  to  forecast.  His  Meta- 
physic  of  Nature  made  no  profession  to  cover  the  field  of 
mind.  A  pure  science  of  psychology,  even  as  phenomenal, 
was  no  part  of  his  projected  philosophical  system.  In  his 
view  there  could  be  merely  an  empirical  science  of  mind. 
All  the  more  significant  is  it,  then,  that  in  later  days  those 
who  are  least  disposed  to  underrate  the  importance  of  his 
philosophical  labours  turn  to  psychology  for  the  means  of 
resolving  the  difficulties  as  to  human  knowledge  which  his 
critical  inquiry,  if  it  did  not  succeed  in  resolving  them, 
must  always  have  the  credit  of  first  bringing  to  light.  That 
philosophy  must  be  based  on  a  science  of  psychology,  in- 
volving the  best  attainable  knowledge  concerning  the  growth 
and  development  of  mental  life,  remains,  after  all  the  thought 
of  the  past,  the  dominant  idea  in  the  thought  of  the  present. 
It  is  an  idea  altogether  in  keeping  with  the  general  intel- 


xxix.]      Elements  of  General  Philosophy.  357 

lectual  tendency  of  the  century.  After  much  thinking  about 
things  as  they  are  found,  men  have  learned  to  look  for  a  truer 
comprehension  of  them  through  an  inquiry  how  they  have 
come  to  be.  We  seek  now  to  understand  things  in  the 
light  of  their  development  and  such  conception  as  can  be 
had  of  their  origin.  It  is  so  in  all  matters  of  scientific 
interest — in  things  natural,  whether  animate  or  inanimate, 
also  in  things  or  institutions  that  have  come  into  being 
through  human  action  or  effort.  Why  not  also  mind — more 
especially  as  mind  has  its  evolution,  not  in  the  individual 
only,  but  also  in  the  race  ?  Yet,  though  insight  may  be  had 
in  this  way  not  to  be  had  otherwise,  there  is  in  such  method 
itself  no  safeguard  against  superficiality  of  treatment.  In 
regard  to  things  not  in  our  power  it  is  easy  to  fancy  that  we 
are  working  out  a  continuous  representation  of  their  develop- 
ment, when  the  representation  is  anything  but  continuous, 
and  when  we  have  got  but  little  hold  of  that  which  has  truly  to 
be  traced.  Therefore  must  analysis  of  the  actual  be  never 
intermitted  but  carried  d«ep,  to  make  known  what  it  is  of 
which  the  origin  has  to  be  sought.  I  believe  that  Kant's 
critical  inquiry  into  the  human  faculty  of  knowledge  was  an 
analysis  that  disclosed  elements  in  it,  the  import  of  which  has 
not  yet  been  fully  apprehended,  and  raised  questions  most 
real  and  pressing  which  yet  await  their  answer  from  psy- 
chology. And  I  end  as  I  began,  by  asserting  that  it  greatly 
concerns  the  English  psychology  of  the  present  day  to  give 
heed  to  them. 


APPENDIX. 


Note  to  Lecture  XVIII,  p.  183. 
From  Elements  of  General  Psychology,  Lecture  II. 

Scheme  of  Fundamental  Sciences. 

Objective.  Subjective. 

[  Logic] 
t.  Mathematics.  Psychology. 

2.  Physics. 


3.  Chemistry. 

4.  Biology. 

5.  Psychology. 

6.  Sociology. 


Regulative  doctrines    or    disci-  \  Logic, 
plines  {not  sciences)  dependent  upon  \  ^Esthetics. 
Psychology.  '  Ethics. 


INDEX. 


Abelard,  49,  50. 

Abstraction,  70,  79,  80. 

Academics,  29,  35. 

Action,  86  et  seq,,  144,  194. 

Active  sense,  171. 

Activity,  179,  285,  328. 

Adamson,  13. 

Altruism,  197. 

Esthetics,  a  department  of  philo- 
sophy, 2,  181. 

Analysis,  21,  207,  216,  240,  357. 

Analytic  propositions,  127. 

Anaxagoras,  31,  33,  218. 

Animals,  in  Cartesianism,  262. 

Animism,  173,  218. 

Anselm,  49,  50,  252. 

Antinomies,  3^3  et  seq. 

A  posteriori.     See  Knowledge. 

A  priori.     See  Knowledge. 

Aquinas,  42,  48-50,  53,  232,  253- 
278. 

Arabian  philosophy,  26,  36,  42, 
44,  278. 

Archimedes,  28,  36,  54. 

Aristotle,  his  so-called  'meta- 
physic,'  7,  8,  18  ;  his  influence, 
26,  35,  43-46,  48-50,  52  ;  on 
nature,  2(>  ;  his  Categories,  43, 
69  ;  works  translated,  43,  69  ; 
his  Realism,  47,  72—74  ;  as 
conciliator,  101  ;  on  cause,  136, 
'  141  ;  on  common  sensibles,  156 ; 
on  Plato,  211;  bis  logic,  214; 
his  psychology,  214  et  seq. 


Arnauld,  59,  60,  62,  235,  271. 
Art,  186. 

Association,  114,  T15. 
Associationism,  65,  112,  116, 131, 

335- 
Astronomy,  35,  210. 
Atomism,  27,  302. 
Augustin,  37  et  seq. 
Authority  and  philosophy,  37,  39, 

6«. 

Bacon,  Francis,  57,  58,  64,  102, 
232,  241. 

Bacon,  Roger,  50,  54. 

Bain,  mixes  up  psychology  and 
philosophy,  2 ;  discounts  onto- 
logy, 8  ;  on  muscular  sense,  67, 
133  ;  a  Nominalist,  J9  ;  on  be- 
lief, 86 ;  his  philosophical  posi- 
tion, 117;  on  matter,  169;  on 
freewill,  196  ;  on  heat,  257  ;  on 
neutral  feelings,  267. 

Belief,  philosophical  import  of, 
16 ;  psychological  analysis  of, 
86  ;  philosophy  of,  91  ;  b.  and 
knowledge,  86  ;  complexity  of, 
89  ;   b.  and  opinion,  208. 

Berkeley,  23;  his  Experientialism, 
64-66;  his  Nominalism,  78,  79; 
on  cause,  140 ;  B.  and  Locke, 
113,  156;  theory  of  matter,  154 
et  seq. ;  B.  and  Descartes,  256. 

Body  and  mind,  177,  255  et  seq., 
271. 


36° 


Index. 


Toe  thins,  43. 

Boyle,  54. 

British   philosophy,    22,   52,   215, 

244. 
Brown,  67,  116,  306. 
Bruno,  52,  278. 
Burnet,  31  n. 
Butler,  155,  191. 

Calvin,  193. 

Carlyle,  75. 

Cartesianism,  270  et  seq. 

Cartesians,  56-60,  270  et  seq. 

Categories,  of  Aristotle,  43 ;  of 
the  understanding.  See  Under- 
standing. 

Causality,  122,  135,  249,  298. 

Causation,  135  et  seq. 

Cause,  100 ;  notion  of,  135  ;  in 
science,  1.59;  in  Cartesianism, 
141  ;  final,  287,  298  ;  efficient, 
290. 

Charlemagne,  41. 

Chemistry,  21. 

Christian  philosophy,  24,  25,  37 
et  seq.,  199,  219. 

Church,  =7  et  seq.,  261. 

Cicero,  35. 

Claubergius,  270. 

Clerselier,  234. 

Cogito  ergo  sum,  61,  245  et  seq. 

Cognition,  15,  16,  67. 

Coleridge,  101. 

Common  sense,  philosophy  of,  63, 
118, 122,  165,  226. 

Common  sensibles,  156,  224. 

Communication,  81,  148. 

Comte,  6,  18,  141, 149,  209,  305. 

Conation,  86,  191. 

Concept,  imrort  of,  69  ;  variety  in 
79,  82. 

Conception,  67,  68. 

Conceptuali?m,  Socratic,  34,  70 ; 
mediaeval,  72-84. 

Condillac,  67,  82,  206. 

Conditioned,  principle  of  the,  122, 

138,  195- 
Consciousness,  circle  of,  168,  241. 


Conservative  faculty,  120. 
Consistency,  188. 
Constantinople,  fall  of,  44,  50. 
Contiguity,  law  of,  1 14. 
Continuity.     See  Leibniz. 
Co-ordination  of  sciences,  18-20. 
Copernicus,  51,  55,  261. 
Cosmology,  27,  32,  33,  345. 
Cosmothetic  Idealism,  166,  256. 
Cousin,  305. 
Crescas,  277. 
Criterion,  of  good,  185 ;   of  truth, 

248  et  seq. 
Critical  philosophy,  57,  63,  124, 

244,  304  et  seq. 
Custom,  114,  335. 
Cynics,  30.  * 

Cyrenaics,  30. 

Dark  ages,  24,  37-42. 

Darwin,  148. 

Deduction,  93,  238,  242. 

Democritus,  27,  28,  30-32,  216. 

Descartes,  birth,  52,  231  ;  scien- 
tific discoverer,  54 ;  founder  of 
modern  philosophy,  57,  61,  62  ; 
his  philosophic  position,  61, 
102  ;  life,  231  ;  method,  231  et 
seq. ;  philosophy,  244  et  seq. ; 
his  criterion  of  truth,  248 ;  as 
dualist,  62,  155,  271  ;  on  the 
self,  248 ;  on  substance,  247, 
256;  as  Conceptualist,  257  ;  on 
space,  258  ;  on  the  soul,  264. 

Destutt  de  Tracy,  67,  116. 

Determinism,  192. 

Dialectic,  20S,  216,  343. 

Ding  an  sick.     See  Noumenon. 

Disbelief,  90. 

Discovery,  240. 

Discursive  faculty,  1 20. 

Doctors  of  the  Church,  37,  41  et 
seq. 

Dogmatism,   280  ;    metaphysical, 

56-59- 
Doubt,  90. 

Dualism,  40,  61,  62,  164,  271. 
Duns  Scotus,  50. 


Index. 


361 


Eastern  Church,  42. 
Ecclesiastical  philosophy,  24,  25, 

37  et  seq- 
Eclectic,  35. 

Education,  in  Plato,  209. 

Effect,  137. 

Effective  thought,  24,  42. 

Ego,  161.     See  Descartes,  Soul. 

Elaborative  faculty,  120,  137. 

Emerson,  his  aphasia,  80. 

Empedocles,  217. 

Empiricism,  57. 

Ends,  1S5,  220,  287. 

Entelechy,  217,  303. 

Epictetus,  30,  35,  40. 

Epicureans,  27,  29,  35,  39. 

Epicurus,  29,  30,  219. 

Epistemology   and    logic,  4,  13 ; 

e.,  philosophy   as,    5,   9,    10  ct 

seq.  ;  e.  and  psychology,  II,  12  ; 

beginnings   of,    23.    See  Plato, 

Spinoza. 
Erigena,  42,  46,  47. 
Error,  254. 

Ethical  standard,  198. 
Ethics,  a  department  of  philosophy, 

2,  1 8 1  ;  as  a  science,  184 ;  e.  and 

psychology,  191  ;  e.  and  politics, 

198  ;  e.  and  Christianity,  199  ;  e. 

and  theology,  199. 
Euclid,  36,  209. 
Evolution,  147,  264,  357. 
Experience,  58,  94,  148,  285,  311, 

339 ;  e.  and  reason,  23,  58,  64, 

71,  242. 
Experientialism,  58, 112, 138,  145, 

152,  315,  32<5-  335- 
Experientialisls,  64. 

Faculty — psychology,  119. 

Faith  and  philosophy,   38,  40  ;  f. 

and  reason,  48-50. 
Fatalism,  193. 
Fathers,  Christian,  41. 
Ferrier,  165. 
Fichte,  63,  355. 
Final  cause,  287. 
Fischer,  Kuno,  56,  251,  271,  277. 


Forms   of  intention,  126,  324  et 

seq. 
Freewill,  136,  192  et  seq.,  353. 
Frobel,  190. 

Galileo,  54,  55,  210,  235. 
Galton,  F.,  81. 
Gassendi,  235,  247. 
General  philosophy,  1,  2. 
Generalisation,  68,  137,  143. 
Generic  images,  80,  81. 
Geulincx,  59, 6o,  62,  141,  266,  270, 

2  73- 
God,  idea   of,  103,  249  et  seq., 

345.  35°-354- 

Good,  idea  ot  the,  206. 

Greek  philosophy,  historical  sketch 
of,  24  et  seq. ;  under  Scholas- 
ticism, 39. 

Green,  on  method,  3,  159. 

Grote,  101,  203,  219,  224-229. 

Hamilton,  confuses  psychology  and 
philosophy,  2,  120;  his  classifi- 
cation of  philosophers,  23;  his 
philosophic  position,  63,  78  ;  on 
faculty,  119;  on  cause,  137; 
on  matter,  163  ;  on  freewill,  195  ; 
on  Aristotle,  225. 

Harmony,  pre-established,  302. 

Hartley,  65,  66,  115,  335. 

Harvey,  54. 

Hegel,  13,  63,  149,  212,  283,  355. 

Heracleitus,  31,  32,  48. 

Heredity,  147. 

Hipparchus,  35. 

Hippocrates,  35,  223. 

History,  19;  in  philosophy  and 
in  science,  20,  22  ;  of  Western 
philosophy  in  outline,  23  et  seq.; 
of  psychology,  214. 

Hobbes,  57,  64,  78,  232,  235,  247, 

2  57- 
Homo  mensura,  34,  205,  222. 
Hooke,  261. 
Hume,  his  scepticism,  57,  59,  63, 

ii5;hisExperientialism,65,ii3; 

Lis  Nominalism,  7S ;  onassocia- 


362 


Index. 


tion,  114;  on  cause,  114,  137, 
140  ;  his  theory  of  matter,  160 ; 
and  Protagoras,  205  ;  and  Kant, 
313,  319,  321,  323,  334,  352. 

Idea,  in  Plato,  71  ;  in  Descartes, 
104;  in  Hume,  104,  114;  in 
Kant,  128,  162,  339  et  seq. 

Ideal,  185. 

Idealism,  28,  56,  71,  72,  212. 

Imagination,  9,  227,  337. 

Imitation,  150. 

Immaterialism,  in  Plato,  31  ;  in 
Berkeley,  157. 

Immortality,  352-354. 

Import,  15,  22,  66. 

Indeterminism,  192. 

Individualism,  115,  149. 

Induction,  94,  137,  143,  239,  242. 

Inductive  logic,  189. 

Inductive  method,  75. 

Innate  ideas,  99,  103,  250. 

Instinct,  103. 

Intellection,  2,  15,  67,  75. 

Intuition,  103,  237,  327,  340. 

Italian  nature-philosophers,  5a. 

James,  on  belief,  84. 

Jesuits,  231,  271. 

Jevons,  117,  125,  189,  241. 

Jewish   philosophy,  36,  59,   219, 

278. 
Joel,  Dr.,  277. 

Judgments,  127,  138,  255,  333. 
Justinian,  emperor,  26. 

Kant,  9 ;  his  division  of  philosophy, 
56;  his  philosophic  position, 
58,63,67,  124  et  seq.,  244,304; 
influenced  by  Hume,  59,  65, 
3".  323»  334J  his  theory  of 
space,  129,  324  et  seq.;  his 
influence,  63,  65 ;  on  experience, 
125;  his  Idealism,  161;  his 
Realism,  162  ;  on  self,  162 ;  on 
proof,  253  ;  on  intellectual  syn- 
thesis, 331 ;  on  pure  reason, 
339  ;  on  soul,  346. 


Knowledge,  its  philosophical  im- 
port, 14,  15,  69,  341  ;  theory  of, 
see  Epistemology ;  kn.  and  belief, 
16,  86 ;  universality  in,  21,  68, 
126  ;  nature  of,  23,  57,  85;  dis- 
cussed by  Plato,  31,  204  et  seq; 
as  relative,  33 ;  objectivity  of, 
97,  116,  154;  a  posteriori  and 
a  priori,  125,  332;  necessity 
in,  126,  130. 

Kritik  of  Pure  Reason,  124,  317. 

Lange,  32. 

Language  and  universals,  78-83, 
150. 

Laura  Bridgman,  83. 

Law  in  science,  136;  as  norm* 
182  ;  moral,  354. 

Laws,  by  Plato,  202. 

Leibniz,  a  scientific  discoverer,  54 ; 
a  Cartesian.  59-65;  a  Rationalist, 
107 ;  Z.  and  Locke,  108 ;  on 
Descartes,  246 ;  on  necessary 
truth,  109,  324;  on  continuity, 
260,  300  ;  on  substance,  296 ; 
on  soul,  298. 

Lewes,  149. 

Leucippus,  31. 

Locke,  his  Experientialism,  57, 64- 
66,  105;  Nominalist  and  Con- 
ceplualist,  78 ;  his  influence, 
no  ;  L.  and  Berkeley,  113;  his 
doctrine  of  matter,  155;  on 
space,  259. 

Logic,  a  department  of  (practical) 
philosophy,  2,3,  181 ;  as  science, 
3,  183  ;  /.  and  epistemology,  4; 
/.  and  psychology,  186;  depart- 
ments of,  189. 

Lucretius,  30,  35. 

Mahaffy,  307. 

Maimonides,  276. 

Malebranche,  59,  60,  62,  142,  262 

266,  271,  274,  276. 
Man,  the  measure  of  all  things, 

32  et  seq. 
Mansel,  82,  144. 


Index. 


3°3 


Marcus  Anrelius  Antoninus,    35, 

40. 
Martineau,  141. 
Materialialism,  32,  113,  170,  236, 

347- 

Mathematics,  209,  232,  283,  322 
et  seq.,  340. 

Mechanical  philosophy,  27,  31. 

Mediaeval  philosophy,  24,  37  et 
seq. 

Memory,  227,  263. 

Metaphysic,  5,  7,  321  et  seq.,  339 
et  seq. 

Mill,  James,  8,  66,  78,  335. 

Mill,  John  S.,  confuses  psychology 
and  philosophy,  2  ;  rejects  onto- 
logy* 8 >  confuses  logic  and 
epislemology,  13;  his  philoso- 
phical position,  66,  67,  116;  on 
Realism,  75  ;  a  Nominalist,  78  ; 
on  uniformity  of  nature,  95  ;  as 
a  logician,  117,  187,  240;  on 
cause,   142 ;  on  external  world, 

172,  335- 
Mind,  philosophy  of,   1  ;  tn.  and 

world,   22,  27,   28;    and  body, 

177,  271. 
Modem  philosophy,  53,  56  et  seq. 
Modern  scientific  movement,   54, 

55- 
Mode6,  256  et  seq.,  274,  282. 
Monadology,  108,  180,  300. 
Monads,  10S,  180,  300. 
Monism,  274. 
Morality,  184,  199,  295. 
Moiteira,  276. 
Motive,  194  et  seq. 
Muscular  sense,  67,  132,  171,  226, 

328,  337- 

Nature  and  mind,  8,  27,  28  ;  philo- 
sophy of,  51  ;  n.  and  experience, 
332;  uniformity  of,  95,  136; 
n.  and  God,  274,  289. 

Necessity.  See  Knowledge,  Organ- 
ism. Freewill. 

Neo-Plalonism.  35,  43,  47. 

New  tun,  54,  67,  j6o,  299,  308. 


Nominalism,    extreme,    49,    80; 

mediaeval,  72-84;  in  Aristotle, 

22S. 
Nominalists,  64,  150. 
Nomology,  3,  122,  182. 
Norm,  182. 

Noiimenon,  162,  341,  355. 
Nods,  33,  101,  208,  217. 

Object,  166,  189,  221. 
Objective,  in  philosophy,  250. 
Objectivity  of  knowledge,  97, 116, 

154. 
Occasionalism,  62,  141,  270. 
Ontology,  5,  7,  11,  320. 
Opinion,  206. 

Organism,  as  predetermined,  1 33. 
Origen,  39. 

Pantheism,  75,  142,  271. 

Papal  supremacy,  48. 

Parallelism,  293. 

Paralogism,  161,  346  et  seq. 

Parmenides,  31,  32,  48. 

Parmenides,  202,  204,  211. 

Pascal,  54. 

Passions,  262  et  seq.,  294. 

Patristic  philosophy,  37  et  seq. 

Pearson,  Prof.  Karl,  277. 

Perception,  philosophical  aspect 
of,  4,  14,  70 ;  in  Plato,  71  ;  and 
belief,  93 ;  of  external  world, 
154  et  seq.,  169  ;  confused,  265, 
300. 

Peripatetics,  29. 

Personality,  173. 

PhaJo,  204,  210,  213. 

Philebus,  202,  204,  211. 

Philosophy,  psychological  basis  of, 
1,  2.  356;  confused  with  psy- 
chology, 2,  16;  its  meaning  and 
history,  5,  6  ;  ph.  and  conduct, 
6,  17,  182  ;  ph.  and  science,  6, 
17  et  seq.,  54,  74-76;  aspects 
of,  10;  ph.  and  insight,  17; 
Greek,  24-36 ;  mediaeval,  37- 
53 ;  modern,  56  et  seq. ;  and 
mathematics,  283,  322-330. 


3^4 


Index. 


Phenomenalism,  160,  294. 
Phenomenology,  4,  11,  122,  182, 

34i- 

Philolaus,  30,  31, 

Physics,  7,  11,  210. 

Plato,  his  use  of  terms,  5  ;  his 
influence,  26,  35,  50 ;  his  Ideal- 
ism, 28,  35  ;  his  theory  of  ideas, 
34,  99,  210;  his  Realism,  46, 
68  -  7 1 ;  on  pre-existence,  7 1 , 1 48 ; 
his  epistemology,  201  et  seq. ; 
his  lite,  201 ;  his  psychology, 
205. 

Platonism,  73. 

Plotinus,  30,  36,  40. 

Pollock,  Sir  F.,  274,  277. 

Porphyry,  30,  43,  46,  67. 

Predestination,  193. 

Predisposition,  105,  118,  147. 

Pre-existence,  71,  148,  213. 

Prjsentative  consciousness,  121. 

Pre-Socratics,  31  et  seq.,  202. 

Probability,  88,  237. 

Proclus,  30,  40. 

Productive      Imagination,      326- 

329- 

Prolegomena,  Kant's,  317  et  seq. 

Proof  and  discovery,  240;  of  God's 
existence  in  Descartes,  250;  in 
Kant,  253. 

Protagoras,  31  et  seq.,  205,  222, 
225. 

Psychological  philosophy,  65. 

Psychology,  as  basis  of  philosophy, 
1,2  ;  as  distinct  from  philosophy, 
2,  16,  182;  and  from  episte- 
mology in  particular,  11,  12; 
history  of,  214;  rational,  345- 
346- 

Ptolemy,  35. 

Pure  reason,  125,  317. 

Pythagoras,  31. 

Qualities,  doctrine  of,  155,  171, 
222,  257. 

Rationalism,  58,  59. 

Realism,  47  et  seq.,  56,  70-76, 164. 


Reality,  4,  14,  15,  17,  62,91, 175, 

253- 
Reason,  22,  49,  58,  64,  68,  122, 

162,  31 1,  340,  344. 
Reasoning,  1S6. 
Reflexion,  10 ;. 
Regius,  236,  270. 
Regulative  doctrine,  3,  4,  181  et 

seq.,  351. 
Regulative  faculty,  120,  137. 
Reid,    23,   57,  63,   79,   118,   163, 

191. 
Relativity  of  knowledge,  10,  165, 

173;  in  Plato,  205. 
Renaissance,  52  et  seq. 
Reneii,  270.  * 

Representative   imagination,    120, 

325- 
Representationism,  164. 
Reproductive  faculty,  1 20. 
Republic,  202  et  seq. 
lies,  77. 

Roscellin,  49,  81. 
Ruskin,  75. 

Sayce,  81  ».,  83. 

Scepticism,  57.     See  Hume. 

Schelling,  63. 

Scholasticism,  24,  25,  37  et  seq., 
102,  232,  250,  2fi9,  278  ;  limita- 
tions of,  44 ;  the  case  for,  45 ; 
Realism  in,  47  et  seq. ;  divisions 
of,  48. 

Schwegler,  56. 

Science,  and  philosophy,  6, 1 7,  74 ; 
history  of,  20;  modern,  54,  55  ; 
s.  and  language,  82,  83;. causa- 
tion in,  139;  classification  of, 
2°9,  358;  of  nature,  322,  331, 

341- 

Scottish  school,  63,  78.  See  Com- 
mon Sense. 

Sensationalism,  33,  67,  82,  99. 

Sense,  in  Plato  ;  in  Kant,  336.  See 
Active,  Experience,  Muscular. 

Shelley,  70. 

Sidgwick,  191. 

Sight,  92. 


Index, 


365 


Simplicius,  37. 

Social  factor,  149,  199. 

Sociology,  184. 

Socrates,  27  et  seq.,  70,  202,  218. 

Solidarity,  149. 

Solipsism,  179. 

Sophistes,  202. 

Sophists,  28  et  seq.,  222. 

Soul,  Aristotle's  definition  of,  173, 
215;  Plato  on  the,  221  ;  immor- 
tality of,  352-354.  See  Animism, 
Descartes,  Kant,  Leibniz. 

Space,  1 26  et  seq.,  285,  323  et  seq., 
341  et  seq. 

Speech.     See  Language. 

Spencer,  mixes  up  psychology  and 
philosophy,  2  ;  his  philosophical 
position,  67,  215;  on  heredity, 
148;  his  Realism,  1 G6;  on  ethics, 
184. 

Spinoza,  59-63;  life  of,  276;  on 
Descartes,  250,  2S0  et  seq.  ;  as 
Cartesian,  274  et  seq.;  asMonist, 
279  ;  as  Oecasionalist,  280  ;  his 
psychology.  293 ;  his  epistemo- 
logy,  294. 

Spinozism,  274  et  seq. 

Standard,  ethical,  198. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  1S4. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  63,  79, 118,  306. 

Stoics,  29,  34,  35. 

Subject,  166,  189,  221. 

Subjectivity,  175,  217. 

Substance,  61,  62,  73,  175,  250, 
2  So. 

Subslantialism,  61. 

Synthesis,  240,  331  et  seq. 

Synthetic  propositions,  127,  323, 
334.  35*. 

Tabula  rasa,  102,  106,  147,  230. 
Taine,  on  the  concept,  79. 
Teleology,  32,  220,  298. 


Telesius,  52. 

Tertullian,  39. 

Theatetus,  35,  202  et  seq. 

Thales,  24,  26,  218. 

Theodicy,  302. 

Theory  of  Knowledge.    See  Episte- 

mology. 
Thought,  120,  186,  336,  343. 
Timceus,  43,  202,  212. 
Time,  126  et  seq.,  332,  341. 
Touch,  92,  222. 
Transition  to  modern  thought,  51- 

53- 
Truth,  187. 
Tycho  Brahe,  261. 

Ultimate  inquiry,  4. 
Unconditioned,  345,  349. 
Understanding,  121,  187,  208  344; 

categories  of  the,  128,  334,  342. 
Unifoimity  of  nature,  95. 
Universalia,  Universals,  23,47,  5^> 

68-84. 
Universality,   in    philosophy,    21, 

22  ;  in  knowledge,  21,  68,  126. 

Validity,  15. 

Verification,  17,  29,  95,  185. 
Voetius,  270. 
Voltaire,  67. 

Wallace,  Edwin,  214  et  seq. 

Whewell,  307. 

Will,  86, 192,  255,  353.  See  Free- 
will. 

William  of  Ockham,  37,50,  51,  74. 

Wirgman,  306. 

Wiscrom,  6,  1 83. 

Wolff,  56,  59,  313,  320,  345. 

World,  as  exiernal,  23,  27,  154  et 
seq. 

Zeno,  29,  30. 


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in  Athens. 


THE   UNIVERSITY   SERIES 


LOGIC,  INDUCTIVE   AND   DEDUCTIVE 

By  William  Minto,  M.A.,  Hon.  LL.D.,  St.  An- 
drews, Late  Professor  of  Logic  in  the  University 
of  Aberdeen.  With  Diagrams.  385  pages.  i2mo, 
$1.25  net. 

FROM  THE  PREFACE.— ■"  In  this  little  treatise  two  things  are 
attempted.  One  of  them  is  to  put  the  study  of  logical  formuhc  on  a 
historical  basis.  The  other,  which  might  at  first  appear  inconsistent 
with  this,  is  to  increase  the  power  of  Logic  as  a  practical  discipline. 
The  main  purpose  of  this  practical  science,  or  scientific  art,  is  con- 
ceived to  be  the  organization  of  reason  against  error,  and  error  in  its 
various  kinds  is  made  the  basis  of  the  division  of  the  subject.  To  carry 
out  this  practical  aim  along  with  the  historical  one  is  not  hopeless, 
because  throughout  its  long  history  Logic  has  been  a  practical  science  ; 
and,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  at  some  length  in  introductory  chapters, 
has  concerned  itself  at  different  periods  with  the  risks  of  eiror  peculiar 
to  each." 

CHAPTERS  IN  MODERN  BOTANY 

By  Patrick  Geddes,  Professor  of  Botany,  Univers- 
ity College,  Dundee.     121110,  Illustrated,  $1.25  net. 

Beginning  with  some  of  the  strangest  forms  and  processes  of  the 
vegetable  world  [Pitcher  Plants],  it  exhibits  these,  not  merely  as  a  vege- 
table menagerie,  but  to  give,  as  speedily  and  interestingly  as  may  be: 

(a)  Some  general  comprehension  of  the  processes  and  forms  of  vege- 
table life,  and,  from  the  very  first, 

(b)  Some  intelligent  grasp  of  jhe  experimental  methods  and  reasoning 
employed  in  their  investigation. 

Other  Insectiverous  Plants,  with  their  Movements  and  Nervous  Ac- 
tion, are  discussed.  The  Web  of  Life,  Relations  between  Plants  and 
Animals,  Spring  and  its  Studies,  Geographical  Distribution,  Landscapes, 
Leaves,  etc.,  form  the  subject  of  other  chapters,  and  handled  in  a  way  to 
open  the  general  subject  of  systematic  botatiy  most  invitingly. 

THE  EARTH'S  HISTORY 

An  introduction  to  Modern  Geology.  By  R.  D. 
Roberts,  M.A.,  Camb.,  D.Sc.  Lond.  With  col- 
ored Maps  and  Illustrations.     i2mo,  $1.50  net. 

A  sketch  of  the  methods  and  the  results  of  geological  inquiry  to  help 
those  who  wish  to  take  up  the  study  in  its  most  interesting  features.  The 
purpose  is  to  answer  such  questions  as  readily  suggest  themselves  to  the 
student,  among  which  may  be  mentioned  the  following  :  What  is  the  nature 
of  the  crust  movements  to  which  the  land-areas  and  mountain  ranges  are 
due?  What  was  the  distribution  of  land  and  water  that  obtained  in  the 
area  when  each  group  of  rocks  was  formed  ?  What  was  the  condition  of  its 
surface,  and  what  the  forms  of  life  inhabiting  it?  What  were  the  oceanic 
conditions  ;  the  depths  in  different  parts  ;  the  forms  of  life  inhabiting  the 
water;  and  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  materials  brought  down  by  the 
rivers  that  poured  into  the  seas  from  the  land-areas  of  that  period? 


THE   UNIVERSITY   SERIES 


THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 
Being  a  Short  Sketch  of  its  History  from  the  Ear- 
liest Times  to  the  Appearance  of  Waverley.  By 
Walter  Raleigh,  Professor  of  Modern  Litera- 
ture at  University  College,  Liverpool.  i2mo, 
$1.25  ?iet. 

The  book  furnishes  critical  studies  of  the  work  of  the  chief  English 
novelists  before  Scott,  connected  by  certain  general  lines  of  reasoning  and 
speculation  on  the  nature  and  development  of  the  novel.  Must  01  the 
material  has  been  given  by  the  author  in  the  form  of  lectures  to  his  classes, 
and  possesses  the  merit  of  being  specially  prepared  for  use  in  the  class- 
room. 

HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 
A  Sketch  of  Primitive  Religious  Beliefs  and  Prac- 
tices and  of  the  Original  Character  of  the  Great 
Systems.  By  Allan  Menzies,  D.D.,  Professor  of 
Biblical  Criticism  in  the  University  of  St.  Andrews. 
i2mo,  438  pages,  $1.50  net. 

This  book  makes  no  pretence  to  be  a  guide  to  all  the  mythologies  or 
to  all  the  religious  practices  which  have  prevailed  in  the  world.  It  is 
intended  to  aid  the  student  who  desires  to  obtain  a  general  idea  of  com- 
parative religion  by  exhibiting  the  subject  as  a  connected  and  organic 
whole,  and  by  indicating  the  leading  points  of  view  from  which  each  of 
the  great  systems  may  be  best  understood. 

LATIN   LITERATURE 
By  J-   W.    Mackail.      Sometime    Fellow  of   Balliol 
College,  Oxford.     i2mo,  286  pages,  $1.25  net. 

Prof.  Tracy  Peck,  Vale  University. — "  I  know  not  where  to  find  in 
such  a  convenient  compass  so  clear  a  statement  of  the  peculiar  qualities 
of  Rome's  Literature,  and  such  sympathetic  and  defensible  judgment  in 
the  chief  authors." 

SHAKSPERE  AND  HIS   PREDECESSORS 
By   Frederick  S.  Boas.     Formerly  Exhibitioner  at 
Balliol  College,  Oxford.     i2mo,  $1.50  net. 

Shakspere's  writings  are  treated  in  this  work  in  their  approximate 
chronological  order.  The  relation  of  the  writings  to  their  sources,  their 
technique  and  general  import,  and  their  points  of  contact  with  the  litera- 
ture of  their  own  and  earlier  times,  engage  the  author's  attention.  The 
Rise  of  the  English  Drama  is  clearly  sketched,  while  Shakspere's  kinship 
to  his  predecessors  is  given  much  greater  prominence  than  is  usual. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

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